A New World in my View
by P.H. Wise
Summary: In the wake of a spell gone wrong, trapped in a world not their own, two lost souls seek a way to reclaim the lives they lost. An X-Men, Power Girl, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossover.
1. New Girl in Town

Xander was falling. It was night, and he was falling.

'Crap, double crap, triple crap, quadruple crap, quintuple crap.' He thought. He wasn't sure where he was or how he had gotten here, but he was definitely falling. He kind of figured that the heart-wrenching sensation of the fall would eventually go away, but right now? Not so much. The last thing he remembered was... was THAT COSTUME. The one Cordelia had made him wear after he'd lost their bet. The one that was currently really uncomfortably tight around his chest and butt. He'd been out chaperoning a bunch of kids, and trying not to feel miserable in his blonde wig and white costume with red cape, a shadow passed over his vision, and then he was here.

Falling.

Screaming at the top of his lungs, too. The wind took his voice before it could reach his ears. Below, a cityscape was rushing up to meet him with uncomfortable speed.

He could not quite stop the choked giggle that escaped him, cutting off his scream, when he realized that he was falling towards the island of Manhattan, though he didn't remember there being a big skyscraper with the number four on each side at the top.

The street grew ever closer, and Xander did the only thing he could think of: he prayed. 'God, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Vishnu, Buddha, hell, I'd take CROM at this point... I could really use some help here!'

He had time to see the 42nd and Madison street signs plus the shocked expressions on the faces of pedestrians right before he hit the ground.

* * *

><p>A New World in my View<br>by P.H. Wise  
>A BtVS Crossover Fanfic<p>

Chapter 01: New Girl in Town

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Comics. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby. I am none of these people. This story is an answer to Challenge 6364: Supergirl Xander.

* * *

><p>"Who's the hottie?" The voice belonged to Johnny Storm - blue hair, blonde eyes ... Wait, reverse those. His gaze lingered on the young woman lying unconscious on the medical bed beneath a host of scanning arrays in the Four Freedoms Plaza's sickbay.<p>

"We don't know," Sue replied. Sister to Johnny, wife to the other man in the room - Reed Richards, who was currently hard at work operating the medical scanners.

Johnny let the door shut behind him as he crossed the smooth white floor that separated him from the hottie on the bed. Holographic screens floated all around her, some of them semi-solid, and responding to the touch of Reed's elongated limbs, stretched from one side of the bed to another. He looked down at the girl.

"God damn," he murmured. There's really no other way to say it: the girl was stacked. And considering the shredded state of her clothing, not to mention the skimpy nature of said clothing to begin with, there was no hiding from her charms. Her obviously developed musculature (and six pack abs) were a little weird when paired with her other endowments, but Johnny wasn't complaining. Young, too - Johnny'd put her age at 18 at most. Gorgeous. Almost boyishly short blonde hair. Flawless skin. Clad in the remains of a white leotard with very hgh cut leg holes, a red cape that had seen better days, a red belt, blue gloves and boots. ... None of it fit her very well. "What do we know?" he asked.

"The young woman fell from the sky above Manhattan Island approximately twenty minutes ago," Reed replied, not looking up from his work. "She landed on the pavement traveling at terminal velocity, and she left a crater at the site of impact six feet deep. She has three broken ribs, extensive bruising, and a few nasty scrapes to show for it."

Johnny raised an eyebrow. "Is she a mutant?"

Sue and Reed exchanged looks. "Not as such," Reed said, followed immediately by Sue saying, "She's not human."

"Looks pretty human to me."

"How much would you say she weighs, Johnny?"

Johnny considered the girl once more, this time with an evaluating eye rather than an appreciative one. ... well, slightly less appreciative. Well... evaluating, anyways. She was maybe 5'11. Well muscled in spite of her large bosom. "180, maybe 200 pounds tops?"

"Five hundred and ten, actually."

Johnny looked surprised at that. "... Damn. Guess that explains the damage to the street."

"In part," Reed replied.

"So," Johnny said, "Random not-human girl falls from the sky above New York, survives the fall, and just happens to land in our front yard?"

Sue shrugged, and looked to Reed. "What do your measurements show?" she asked.

"... Double D, at least."

Reed and Sue gave Johnny a look.

"What? You give me a line like that, and you expect me not to take it? I'm only human."

The girl let out a faint groan, drawing the attention of the three heroes.

"She's waking up," Reed said.

* * *

><p><em>Sunnydale High<em>

"Haven't you ever wondered what you'll be when you grow up?" Cordelia asked.

Xander shrugged. "I always figured I'd just be Xander, and let the rest take care of itself."

"That's no reason to avoid career week," Cordelia replied. "Come on. They've already posted the results."

Something about the career fair made him feel downright uneasy. ... wasn't it not supposed to be happening for another couple of weeks? He was pretty sure that's what the school calendar said, anyways. "What do you care, anyways?" he asked. But Cordelia gave him a look that said she wasn't going to have any of it, and his resistance faded in the face of it. He let her drag him over to the bulletin board, and watched bemusedly as she examined her own listing.

"Oh, here I am," Cordelia said. "'Personal shopper or motivational speaker.' Neato!"

"Motivational speaker?" Xander asked, sarcasm thick in his voice, "On what? Ten ways to a more annoying you?"

Cordelia glared, and then paged through the H-K list to find Xander's result. "And what about you? You're..." she broke out into giggles. "Oh. Oh wow."

"What?" Xander rushed over to the board to examine his place on the list. "What?"

Xander Harris. Superheroine.

...

Wait, WHAT?

He was still staring in shock at the listing when the world began to blur around him. He felt as though his head were wrapped in a wet towel, and everything grew painfully bright...

* * *

><p><em>Four Freedoms' Tower<em>

Waking up was not the most pleasant experience Xander Harris had ever had. His head throbbed - his whole body throbbed, actually - and the light was almost physically painful to look at. He tried to lift an arm, to rub his eyes, but his arm felt like it was made of lead. "Ugh..." he moaned.

Slowly, the world came into focus. There were shapes now, and not just painful light and colour. His body felt... different. Weird. There was a weight on his chest that hadn't been there before. His thoughts were fuzzy. Weirdly out of focus.

And then he looked down and saw his own chest. Or rather, her own chest. She stared down at her own ample bosom for a long moment with a look of complete incomprehension. Then a quick check with the fingers revealed that she was in fact naked under the blanket that covered her from the waist down, and that yes, she was missing a particular part of her anatomy between her legs. Someone was speaking, but she couldn't make out the words. All the blood felt like it was rushing away from her head.

All things considered, Xander took the situation rather well: she fainted.

Waking up the second time was easier. No slow process this, but the flick of a switch. One moment unconscious, the next, awake.

She was still lying on a cold bed, a blanket still covering her from the waist down. The lights were dimmer now, and a woman with long blonde hair was looking down at her, smiling compassionately. "Hey," the woman said. "How do you feel?"

Xander had to swallow three times before she could manage to speak, "... like I got into a fight with a city bus... and lost..." Her voice was higher now - in the alto range - and there was a strength and authority in it that it had never held before, even now, even barely able to speak as she was. She wasn't sure she liked that.

The woman laughed. "More like a city street. Can you tell me your name? And how you wound up falling from the sky above New York city?"

Xander opened her mouth to reply. She knew who she was, certianly - her memories were clear right up until the point where hit the ground. ... but how DID she get here? And did she really want to give the name 'Xander Harris' in this situation? She'd never live it down. She shook her head, trying very hard to get a handle on the panic that was bubbling up from the pit of her stomach, "I'm sorry, I don't..."

The woman nodded. "Short term memory loss is sometimes associated with ... accidents. It should come back once you've recovered from the concussion."

Xander nodded faintly. "... Thanks," she managed. A pause. "Am I in the hospital?"

The woman shook her head. "You're inside Four Freedoms' Plaza. When you crashed just outside, well..." she shrugged. "I'm Sue. Sue Richards. We've been tending to your injuries."

"Who's we?"

"Besides myself? Reed, my husband, my brother Johnny, and Ben."

"... Huh."

Sue raised an eyebrow. "Never heard of the Fantastic Four?" she asked.

"I've heard of the Magnificent Seven? ... which I'm guessing is totally not the same thing."

"Guess you're not from around here." Sue laid out a pair of of jeans and a black tanktop - both in her sizes, followed by a bra and panties. "We're going to ask that you stay here in the medical bay until Reed thinks you're well enough to walk around. He'll be in shortly - we decided that it would be better not to expose you to too many different faces all at once. Or at least not until you're dressed. Do you need help getting dressed?"

Xander's face burned with embarrassment at that, and while she had no idea how to put on a bra, she shook her head. "No thanks."

"I'll just be outside, then. If you need anything, call out and we'll hear you."

A moment later, the door opened with a hiss, and Sue stepped out of the room, the door closing behind her shortly afterwards.

Xander sat up and looked around at the medical bay, still in shock, but now desperately trying to come up with some sort of story to tell these people. ... Well, some sort of story OTHER than the truth: telling people about the Hellmouth and Halloween and all the rest, besides being really embarrassing, would probably not cement her position as a member of the 'being sane' club in the eyes of her hosts.

She didn't even try to put on the bra, but she did manage the panties, the jeans, and the tank top - which she filled out generously. It hurt to put on the clothes. Her ribs. Sharp, burning pain every time she inhaled.

'OK, Xander,' she thought, 'Let's approach this rationally. You lost the bet, you dressed as Power Girl, something happened, and now... it's a dream. That has to be it. It's just a bad dream.' She pinched herself.

Nothing.

'Right. Not a dream. You've actually been transformed into a girl, you're injured, and you're stuck in New York until you can find a way to get home and hopefully to reverse this transformation without anyone finding out that it happened. ... can this get any worse?'

No sooner had she thought it than it did: Xander Harris, newly female, really needed to pee.

It didn't take long to find the restroom - unisex, thank Crom - and after she'd relieved herself, she took a moment to consider her reflection in the mirror. ... and immediately recognized the person looking back: Power Girl.

She'd been turned into Power Girl.

Staring at her own reflection, Xander couldn't help but drool.

* * *

><p><em>Ethan's Halloween Supply, Sunnydale<br>__Three Hours Ago_

"It's come as you aren't night," Buffy told Willow as she led the other girl through the costume shop's racks. A new store. 'Ethan's. "The perfect chance for a girl to get sexy and wild with no repercussions."

"Oh, I don't get wild," Willow replied, finding the whole idea a bit dubious. "Wild on me equals spaz."

"Don't underestimate yourself. You've got it in you."

Willow spotted Xander as he approached, smiled, and called out, "Hey Xander! What'd you get?" She gestured to the shopping bag he held.

A beat passed, and then Willow frowned. "... You're not really going through with that bet you made with Cordelia, are you?"

His face burning with shame, Xander opened the bag, revealing the Powergirl costume that lay within, complete with blonde wig. "Shoot me. Stuff me. Mount me." he muttered.

Buffy looked sympathetic. "Nobody really expects you..." She trailed off. "OK, nobody who isn't Cordelia really expects you to go through with it, Xander."

"A bet's a bet. A man doesn't go back on his word."

Buffy made a face. He was still sore about that whole 'violating the guy code' thing, it seemed. "Xander, I really am sorry about this morning."

"Trying to repress here, Buffy," he replied.

"Right." She put her chin on his shoulder and pouted. "Okay, then I promise, from now on I'll let you get pummeled."

Xander rolled his eyes. "Thank you," he said.

* * *

><p><em>Four Freedoms' Tower<em>

A knock on the door brought Xander out of her thoughts. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, now, bare feet dangling just above the cold floor. She looked up. "... Yeah?"

The door opened, and a man in a blue jumpsuit with white hair at his temples entered, followed closely by Sue. "How are you feeling?" Sue asked.

Xander met her gaze, smiled a little uncomfortably, and did NOT say the first thing that came to mind ('emasculated'), but took a moment to think about what to say, and then said, "Better. Still some pain, but better."

"Glad to hear it." Sue gestured to the man who had preceded her into the room. "This is Reed. Reed, this is..." she looked questioningly to Xander.

Xander said nothing, wracking her brain for some kind of response, finding none.

"Sue tells me you've been having some problems with your memory," Reed said. "Why don't you just tell us whatever you can?"

It came to her as a flash of inspiration: a name she could use while she was stuck in this body that would never be associated with her old one. A name that they wouldn't immediately know to the name of a fictional character - after all, Power Girl was pretty widely known as Kara Zor-L, and while she liked that one better, she didn't want to press her luck. It would be weird to be called by it, but Xander had dealt with weird before, and honestly? It was better than telling them the truth. "... Starr," she said. "My name is Karen Starr."

Sue looked a bit dubious, but Reed smiled, and if Xander couldn't tell if it was an amused smile or a polite smile, well... she wasn't going to stress over it. "A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Starr," Reed said.

"Right. I hate to cut this short, and I'm grateful and everything, but..." Xander looked a little embarrassed, and rubbed the back of her neck. "Can I use a phone?"

Reed and Sue exchanged glances.

"Who would you call, Ms. Starr?" Sue asked.

Xander couldn't quite suppress her discomfort. "... look, can you not call me 'Ms. Starr?'"

"Karen, then."

Xander looked at them both for a long moment. "I need to get in touch with a man named Rupert Giles," she said finally.

"I don't think that's going to happen," Reed said. "Not yet, anyways."

Xander's eyes narrowed. Were these people really going to try to keep her here? She hopped off the bed, ignoring the sudden searing pain in her chest, and landed on her feet with far more of a thud than her body had any right to produce. "Am I a prisoner?" she asked.

"No. But you are an unknown quantity."

"I haven't done anything wrong," Xander said.

"We scanned you while you were unconscious, Karen," Sue said. "We know that you're an extra-terrestrial."

Xander tried not to let the shock she felt show on her face. She knew that Power Girl was a Kryptonian, but the idea of herself as a Kryptonian hadn't connected emotionally before now. ... she was an alien. With Superman's powers! Immediately, she tried to use her X-Ray vision.

...

Nothing.

Damn. Were her eyes broken or something?

Reed nodded in agreement with his wife, unaware of what Xander was attempting. "You could have any number of bacteria or viruses in your system that would prove lethal - or at the very least problematic - to the general population. Until we're sure that releasing you wouldn't cause a pandemic or worse, we'd like you to remain here. We have the necessary resources to deal with anything you might be carrying. There are very few others who can say the same."

Xander made a face at that. She didn't much like the idea, and Sue picked up on it, following right on the heels of her husband's words with, "And besides, you haven't recovered from your injuries yet. No sense leaving when you shouldn't even be out of bed, is there?"

A twinge of pain from Xander's broken ribs sealed the deal. She sighed. "... All right, but I reserve the right to complain endlessly about being stuck in one room for however long it takes you to finish your tests."

Sue cracked a smile. "That sounds fair." 

* * *

><p>Her recovery was slow, and for the life of her, Xander couldn't figure out why. Didn't Power Girl normally heal really quickly? But here she was, a week into her extended stay at Four Freedoms' Plaza, still not allowed outside, and her ribs still hurt like hell, and her bruises had only just begun to fade. Granted, she was healing faster than a normal human, but still... it was annoying as hell.<p>

A week.

She'd been a girl for a week. The idea still gave her the creeping horrors, and given the specific shape of this particular female body, it wasn't like she could just hide everything: she was reminded of her femaleness on an almost hourly basis. Sometimes she'd be fine for hours at a time, and then she'd feel her breasts shifting slightly when she moved, or just become painfully aware of the slight sway of her hips when she walked that she couldn't quite stop, or even just the way a fabric felt against her skin.

...

and then there was Johnny.

...

Oh boy, but there was Johnny. 

* * *

><p>"Evening, gorgeous," the soon-to-be object of Xander's irritation called out as Sue led her into a dining room where he, Reed and a ... big... rock thing in blue shorts? ... waited.<p>

Xander stared.

"I know we can't all have supermodel good looks like me," the rock thing said, "But in some places starin' like that is considered rude."

Xander kept right on staring.

"Karen," Sue said, "This is Johnny," she indicated the blonde-haired, blue eyed young man, clad in the ever popular blue jumpsuit that seemed like it was all these people wore, "And that's Ben. Ben, Johnny, this is Karen Starr. She's going to be staying with us for a while."

"Pleasure's all mine," Ben said, and offered a hand.

"Pretty sure you're wrong," Johnny commented in a sotto voice.

Xander felt a stab of irritation pass through her, but refrained from giving Johnny the dirty look that he deserved - Sue was already taking care of that. Instead, she shook Ben's hand. "Nice to, er, meet you." She paused. "You're not demons, right?"

The Fantastic Four each looked at her in surprise.

"Do you deal with demons on a regular basis, Ms. Starr?" Reed asked.

Xander shook her head. "... Er, no," she lied poorly, and realized it almost immediately. "...by which I mean yes. Deal with. Demons, that is. There's dealing." And then she realized she was babbling almost as badly as Willow, and shut her mouth with an audible click.

Sue smiled an amused sort of smile. "No, we're not demons, Karen. We're human, just like everybody else." She paused, and then met Xander's gaze. "Well, almost everybody else."

"So you're the super-powered alien chick I keep hearing about?" Ben asked.

Xander sat down at the table. "... unless you've got more than one of us stashed away here?"

"Just you at the moment," Sue said.

"Heh," Ben said as he walked from the kitchen to put food on the table. "So what powers ya got?"

Xander actually had to think about that one. Did all of Power Girl's abilities carry over? ... She hadn't been able to fly, and she certainly wasn't healing as fast as she should if she really had Power Girl's powers, and her one attempt to use x-ray vision had totally failed. ... but she WAS way heavier than she should be, and she kept breaking things on accident. If she had to guess, she'd probably put her level of strength at Buffy level. But that was nowhere near what she was supposed to be capable of. "... I'm not sure, actually."

"Wanna find out?"

"That'll have to wait until some time when I'm not completely messed from kissing pavement at terminal velocity," Xander replied. "... Nine point eight meters per second per second may not be what it used to be, but I still don't recommend it." 

* * *

><p>It hadn't been so bad at first. Xander actually liked Ben, and Sue was cool, and Reed was... well, distant and scientific.<p>

Johnny needed to learn to leave well enough alone. Getting hit on was creepy enough, but getting hit on almost constantly? ... She was beginning to consider solutions which involved violence.

At least she was going to be allowed access to a phone today. They'd done enough tests to be pretty sure that she wasn't carrying the next Ebola virus in her bloodstream, even if the needles they'd had to use to pierce her skin were truly the stuff of nightmares. Stupid ultra-dense cellular structure.

She was walking with Sue again, heading for some sort of communications room, though why they didn't just let her borrow a cell phone was beyond her. As she walked, she absently noted the treated windows. It was day time, but those windows weren't letting sunlight through. That made her frown. Why bother having windows if they didn't let sunlight through at all? Weird.

She stepped into the communications room, and Sue quickly directed her to sit down at a glowing futuristic terminal.

"That's your phone?" Xander asked.

Sue shrugged. "... Technically, no. But since you're not keyed into our network, this is what you can use."

Xander gave the setup a dubious look. "How do I...?"

"Place a call?" Sue reached over and manipulated the holographic screen for a few moments, brought up the phone menu, and then gestured to Xander. "There you are. Just hit 'end' when you're done." And she sat down at the seat next to Xander's.

Xander gave her an uncomfortable look. "... Er, look, could I maybe do this in private?"

Sue thought about that, nodded, stood up, and left the room. "Remember," she called as the door slid shut, "End when you're done."

Xander let out a breath. "... Right. OK." She typed in Giles' phone number on the holo-pad.

_#The number you have dialed is not in service, or has been disconnected...#_

Xander frowned. She paused a moment, and then dialed Buffy's phone number.

_#The number you have dialed is not in service, or has been disconnected...#_

Feeling a sense of rising panic, Xander typed in Willow's phone number, and when that didn't work, after wracking his brain for another number to try, went and dialed the number for Jessie's parents, too.

_#The number you have dialed is not in service, or has been disconnected...#_

Her own phone number.

_#Hello?# The man's voice on the other end wasn't one she recognized._

"... Is this the Harris residence?" she asked.

_#I'm sorry,#_ the man replied. _#I think you have the wrong number.#_

"Sue?" she called out. "Sue?"

The door opened, and Sue poked her head in. "Karen?"

"Can you do a search on the town of Sunnydale, California?"

Sue nodded, sitting down next to Xander and letting her fingers fly across the controls. A moment later, the results of the search came up on the screen: no matches.

Xander's eyes went wide. "... I think I'm not in Kansas anymore."

_**End Chapter 01**_

* * *

><p>Author's Notes:<p>

Yet Another Halloween fic. Oh dear.

I actually tend to dislike genderbent Xander stories, but I figure the best way to criticize previous executions of a concept is to write your own version of it. More to come.


	2. Learning the Ropes

"Actually, I wanted to discuss an issue that came up eight days previous," Reed said. He was seated at an ornate wooden table in distinguished company: Charles Xavier to his right, Namor, King of Atlantis to his left, Stephen Strange, Iron Man, and Black Bolt across the table from him.

The others looked his way, waiting for him to continue.

Reed produced a small holo-emitter and activated it: an image of the blonde haired, busty, female Xander Haris appeared floating above the device. "It appears that I have gained myself a house guest," he began.

Namor looked annoyed. "I hardly see how this is a matter for our consideration. Did we not agree that this would be a forum in which we discussed only 'The Big Things?'"

Reed ruthlessly suppressed the annoyance he felt. "With respect, King Namor, she is not a small thing."

Namor did not seem impressed, but he nodded for Reed to continue.

Reed hit a switch, and began to display the readings he had taken in his scans of the girl. "Her name is Karen Starr. Alien. Unknown planet of origin. Her abnormally dense molecular structure gives her a baseline strength and toughness several times that of an ordinary woman. That in and of itself would not be a problem, if it weren't for the nature of her power."

Iron Man studied the holographic display. "... we've dealt with beings able to absorb solar energy before," he said, his tone neutral.

"Not like this," Reed replied. "I've managed to prevent her exposure to sunlight thus far, but it will happen, and once it does, her power will grow exponentially. Ultimately, if my analysis of her potential is correct, she will become a being of comparable power to Thor. The process will take time, but once started..."

"Surely you're not suggesting that we kill her simply because she's an Omega Class being," Xavier said.

"No. But I am asking for your advice."

There was a moment of silence at the table, and then the Black Bolt raised his hand. Xavier studied him for a moment, and then voiced the other man's thoughts aloud: "He believes that the girl should be evaluated before any judgment is passed one way or another."

"A test of character?" Doctor Strange asked. "I can arrange such a thing."

"Afterwards, if she passes, she'll need to be trained," Iron Man said.

Reed nodded.

All eyes went to Charles.

Charles looked slightly uncomfortable. "The Xavier institute exists to train and guide young mutants in the wise use of their powers. This girl is neither mutant nor human."

"But you'll train her," Namor said.

Charles met Namor's gaze. "Under the watchful gaze of Sentinel Squad O*N*E?" he asked.

"Irrelevant. You'll train her because there is no other choice. Atlantis is no option here."

"The Avengers aren't equipped for it," Iron Man added.

"I can do even less for her than you," Doctor Strange said.

Reed and Black Bolt said nothing.

"You'll train her," Namor said, "Because the alternative is unthinkable. She needs to be in control of her powers, and she needs teachers accustomed to dealing with young people in her situation."

Xavier sighed. "... I'll train her," he conceded.

"It's decided then," Iron Man said. "Now, let us move on to our next order of business: the continuing fallout of the mutant Decimation..."

It was a peace offering to Xavier. Everyone knew it. The 198 mutants who remained empowered were hardly a world-shaking affair, but no one objected.

They owed him that much.

* * *

><p>A New World in my View<br>by P.H. Wise  
>A BtVS Crossover Fanfic<p>

Chapter 02: Learning the Ropes

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby.

* * *

><p>Xander had never been a fan of exercise. PE? Hated it, just like every other kid in the class. Sports? Unless you count swimming, not so much. Exercise had been an unpleasant thing to be avoided at all costs if entertainment could be found elsewhere. That had changed a bit when he began helping Buffy, of course - especially during the summer between the last school year and this one. Giles had put his foot down and insisted that even if they were going to be 'fray-adjacent,' they needed to have a bare minimum level of physical fitness lest they prove to be an outright burden to their resident Slayer rather than a help. Neither he nor Willow had much liked that, but they'd done what he asked, eventually. ... She nor Willow. ... and there it was again. She couldn't even go five minutes in the privacy of her own thoughts without coming back to the singular fact which had come to dominate every aspect of her existence: Xander Harris had been transformed into a girl. It took her a few moments to recover her train of thought after that one went ripping through her mental station.<p>

Exercise. He had never liked exercise, but he'd done it, once it had been made a precondition of his and Willow's continuing to help Buffy. But now, with little else to do, SHE found herself doing a surprising amount of exercising in the Fantastic Four's gym, and much to her surprise, it felt good. She'd mostly been doing cardio, and on machines designed for The Thing - she tended to break the other ones if she tried to use them, simply by weight alone. Today, she'd decided to try weights. There she was, Ben was spotting her on a bench press, and she in a t-shirt and a pair of shorts was bench pressing six hundred pounds with an ease that still made her giggle if she stopped to think about it. She managed thirty reps before her arms started to tingle pleasantly. At that she took a break for a minute, and then did another thirty. A break. Another thirty. It was surprisingly exhilerating. Especially with her ribs finally no longer sending horrific stabbing pain through her entire body every time she breathed.

Not that the new body didn't have downsides. The first time she'd done the treadmill, Johnny and Sue had both been in the room. Kryptonian physiology meant that her breasts, despite their size, were far firmer than they had any right to be, but they still bounced painfully when she ran, and ten minutes into her exercise, she noticed that Johnny had stopped his own exercises and was openly staring at her in the wall-mirror.

Sue had then taken her aside into the changing room and explained the finer points of sports bras, and showed her how to put one on. Xander hadn't gone back to exercising that day, and NEVER went in anymore if Johnny was present. ... but when she did go back, she went back wearing a sports bra underneath her t-shirt.

It kind of worried her, actually. Not the sports bra thing, though thinking about wearing one still embarrassed her to no end. ... as did thinking about not wearing one. Or just thinking about bras in relation to her new female body in general. Or thinking about her new female body at all, when she wasn't also being overcome by sheer, overwhelming, all out panic. Or... ok, the point was, she was embarrassed. But it worried her, too. How good it all felt. The exhileration she felt when she realized exactly how strong she was. She supposed that her attraction to her own body was a good sign. Or at least as good a sign as could be expected under the circumstances. But getting horny at the sight of your own reflection was so very much of the creepy. Not as creepifying as the actual sensation of feeling horny as a girl for what had been a teenaged boy not long ago, but generally creepifying.

That wasn't the only problem, though. The big problem? Besides the fact that she was a girl at all? ... She couldn't swim. As Xander, swimming had been the ONLY physical activity she'd actually halfway enjoyed. Now? She literally could not swim. She'd tried that as her initial form of exercise: she'd sunk right to the bottom. Her body wasn't buoyant. She didn't remember Power Girl or Superman ever having this kind of trouble in the comic books.

Stupid abnormally dense cellular structure.

So now, a month into her stay with the Fantastic Four, Xander Harris - Karen Starr - headed back to the exercise room, trying very hard not to mope over the idea of still being stuck here after a month. She'd been feeling a little under for the last week or so. Mostly just tired, but there'd also been this annoying headache that wouldn't go away. She figured it was probably stress. She stopped off in the changing room. Undressed. Pulled off the boxers she'd finally convinced Sue to pick up for her.

... She was bleeding.

She was bleeding _**down there.**_

Xander had attended sex ed. She knew what was going on. Knew she wasn't dying or anything. But despite knowing what it was, the intellectual knowledge of 'women have periods' and the direct experience of 'I'm having a period' are very different things. She took it about as well as might be expected.

She took an unintended decisive nap.

* * *

><p>"Reed, I'm going to tell you something, and I need you to tell me whether or not I'm crazy, all right?"<p>

Reed smiled faintly. "You're crazy," he said.

"Very funny," Sue replied. "I'm serious."

Reed nodded. "All right. Go ahead."

"I've spent a lot of time with Karen over the past month," Sue began. "And she knows things about Earth culture that I would never expect an alien to know. Things that she could only know if she had been born here."

"Or been programmed with the memories of a person who was born here," Reed said.

Sue nodded. "Or that. But there are the damndest gaps in her knowledge."

Reed raised an eyebrow. "Such as?"

"She didn't realize that she'd need to support her breasts when she exercises. She had no idea how to put on a bra, but she knew what it was and what it was for." Sue pressed her lips together a moment. "And while she knew about the basic concepts of feminine hygiene, she had no idea how to actually apply them or deal with them, at all. I had to talk a seventeen year old girl through the process of dealing with her period yesterday."

Reed felt mildly uncomfortable at that, but nodded, 'hmm'ing thoughtfully.

"There's no way a seventeen year old girl hasn't had her period yet, but she acted like she'd never..." Sue trailed off at Reed's look of discomfort. "Honestly, Reed? Not the time." At his contrite expression, she went on. "Her body language is almost exclusively masculine as well." She paused a moment. "If she was programmed with the knowledge and memories of an Earth native, I think that native must have been a teenaged boy."

"There are other possibilities," Reed said. "It could be that whatever world she calls home simply has different social roles for men and women. Much of what we see as set in stone about the sexes is the product of being raised in our society, and not an inherent quality of either sex. What we see as masculine behavior, they might well see as feminine. Or they may lack such categories altogether."

"I know that, I just..."

"Lacking additional information, your conclusion is the most likely," Reed acknowledged. A pause. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Sue shook her head. "Just... be aware of it. Keep it in mind when you interact with her. I don't think she's comfortable in her skin."

Reed nodded. "Gender dysphoria," he murmured. "How very... human."

Sue smiled faintly. "How very," she replied.

* * *

><p>One month and four days had now passed since her arrival. One month and four days stuck inside Four Freedoms' Plaza - on one particular floor, in fact - never seeing the outside world. Never seeing the sky. Never feeling the sun on her skin. Xander was beyond stir crazy, so when Sue asked if she'd accompany her on a shopping trip tonight, despite her utter disinterest in shopping, Xander all but leaped at the opportunity, if only to get out of the damn building for a while, and breathe air that wasn't conditioned and recycled.<p>

That was before the doors to Four Freedoms Plaza actually opened in front of her, and she stepped out into the New York city summer evening.

The heat and the humidity hit her like a physical blow. Xander had taken a shower twenty minutes previous. She now felt like she needed another shower. Muggy. Hot. Awful. The air was utterly still, and its stillness only made it worse. Sue seemed not to notice. She just walked out and got into the waiting car like it was an everyday thing. And it was, Xander realized, an every day thing. For her. She became uncomfortably aware of a trickle of sweat running down her left breast. She grimaced, and then followed Sue to the car.

Johnny Storm's voice greeted her as she slid into the seat and shut the door. "Hey Sue. Hello, gorgeous."

"Johnny, be nice," Sue said.

Xander tried not to grind her teeth.

Johnny dropped them off thirty minutes later in a neighborhood that didn't look much like a commercial district. Xander frowned as the car drove off, and she looked to Sue questioningly. "Are you sure this is the right place?"

"I'm sure. Come on, it's this way." Sue began to walk along the abandoned sidewalk, and Xander followed, if reluctantly.

'This ... is vampire country,' Xander thought. 'This is dumb. Why is she taking me out here? Sue wouldn't lead me into a trap... would she?'

Sue turned suddenly and stepped into an alleyway and out of Xander's view. Goosebumps stood up on her arms. Something was very wrong. It was cold. A thick fog began to roll out of the alley. Sue was gone. Finely honed Sunnydale instincts told her to run. Run now. NOW.

Xander started to. Started to turn and sprint away. She didn't get more than three steps when a woman's scream of terror tore out from the alleyway, followed by a second and a third.

Xander froze in her tracks, her thoughts racing. A woman was in danger. She wasn't a hero. She was fray adjacent! She was the donut monkey! She was... running towards the alleyway and cursing herself for a fool.

A flare of intense light and heat from within the alley banished the fog, and instantly, Xander beheld a great demonic form seemingly made from fire and obsidian sending blast after blast of power over the cowering form of Sue Richards. Sue had managed to put up some sort of barrier around herself, but it was shrinking with every blast, and her screams echoed long and loud.

Hating herself for being a fool, Xander scooped up a nearby trash can lid and flung it at the creature with all her might: it sent up a shower of sparks when it impacted, and was instantly reduced to molten slag. The creature turned to peer at the one who had dared to challenge it, and it laughed.

**"**_**This is not your business, mortal. Come not between Dormammu and his prey, or he shall not slay thee in turn, but carry thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye."**_

Xander swallowed heavily, and it didn't occur to her then that those words seemed vaguely familiar. Gathering her courage, she picked up the trash can and held it over her head. She knew it wouldn't do much, but it felt good to hold a weapon, even if it wasn't a useful one. "Sue, get out of there! I'll hold it off!" She swallowed nervously once more, and when she finished her statement, it was in a much less confident voice: "... somehow."

A terrible wave of heat sent Xander scrambling back around the corner, and Sue screamed, "Don't be a fool, Karen! You can't do anything to something like this! Go! Run!"

Xander strode forward. "Like hell!" she yelled, and threw the trashcan. It fared no better than the lid.

"_**Very well, mortal. You have my attention. Remember, this was YOUR **__**CHOICE."**_

The demon charged her. Xander was hardly an expert combatant - she'd learned the bare basics and that was it, but even she knew that you don't stand there and take a charge from a ten foot burning demon thing. Simultaneously, she spotted a fire hydrant out of the corner of her eye. She waited as long as she dared, and then leaped out of the way... not quite in time. Dormammu clipped her, sending her spiralling into the wall, which dented visibly with the impact. She struggled for breath, and then yelled, "... Sue, you're kind of undercutting my heroic last stand here by NOT RUNNING FOR YOUR LIFE!"

The fiery demon was rearing back for another blast, and Xander did the only thing she could think to do: she hit the fire hydrant as hard as she could. She HEARD the bones of her hand cracking. Felt agony racing up her arm. But her bones weren't the only thing that cracked: the hydrant had as well. Water pressure did the rest. The hydrant ruptured, sending a terrific gout of pressurized water into the surprised demon's face.

Steam filled the street. Heat built upon heat. The night grew muggier, and then intolerably muggier, the air a thick soup of steam and mist.

Coughing, Xander stumbled into the alleyway. She'd lost sight of Sue. Lost sight of the demon. There was a light source somewhere above her. "Sue!" she cried.

Dormammu came charging out of the steam like a freight train, his fires extinguished, but not his rage. "_**You will DIE for your insolence!" **_it roared, its punch sending her flying back to the far end of the alley, sliding across the last six feet of pavement. ... Sue lay on the ground at the end of the alley, coughing, struggling to breathe in the thick steam. A door stood open close at hand. Xander might be able to get through it before the demon got to her, but if she did, then Sue was...

Cursing herself once more, Xander did the right thing: she scooped up Sue and shoved her through the door, shut that door, and then turned to face the demon.

"_**You would risk your life for a woman who has done all she can to contain you? Denied you access to the outside world before this night? Lied to you? Plotted against you with her team mates?" **_

What would Buffy do? ... Xander knew just the thing. She glared at the demon. "Are you done talking yet? Because I have places to be." Despite the severity of the situation, and the agony of her shattered hand, she almost giggled.

_**"So be it," **_the demon replied. And then it smiled, and spoke in a much more kindly voice. "You pass the test, Karen Starr."

All at once, the illusion faded. The damage to the alleyway faded. The pain in Xander's hand faded. The steam faded. The molten brick and concrete of the walls of the alley faded. The image of the demon vanished, revealing a man in a blue suit with black hair with two white stripes at his temples. Had the entire situation been controlled by this man? ... Apparently so.

The door at the back of the alley opened, and Sue stepped out, smiling.

"... a test?" Xander asked.

"You passed," Sue said.

Xander stared at them both for a long moment. "... you have got to be kidding me," she muttered.

The light from above descended, then. A man made of fire, and laughing with Johnny's voice. "Nicely done, hot stuff," he called. "I told them you were better than they gave you credit for!"

The man of fire descended into the alleyway, but she scarcely noticed. There was... the strangest tingle in her body. The faintest feeling of... power, pulsing in time to the beat of her heart, scarcely noticable beneath the righteous anger that she felt. "You set me up, made me think Sue was in danger of being murdered by a demon, made me think _**I **_was going to have to sacrifice myself to save her... as a TEST?"

"We had to know," Sue said, shifting a bit guiltily.

"A crude instrument, perhaps, but necessary," the man in the blue suit said. "I am Stephen Strange. I welcome you to New York, Karen Starr. I have heard much about you."

Xander could feel it gathering in her limbs. Power building. Something was about to happen. Her anger built. She wasn't about to let her anger be defused without an apology. "You people are unbelievable!" she yelled. And then, instinctually seizing on the power she'd felt, she jumped straight up into the wild blue yonder, and took off into the night like a bat out of hell.

She was FLYING. Wherever this power had come from, it was letting her FLY! Instantly, her anger was forgotten. She laughed a delighted laugh, seeing the city whip by below her. It took seconds to leave the neighborhood completely behind. Less than a minute to cross the whole island of Manhattan and alight on top of the Brooklyn Bridge. There, she laughed like a madwoman, her whole body tingling with power. Kicking off the bridge, she soared up into the air, spun, dove down to buzz vehicles crossing the bridge below, zoomed out over the East River, and...

Dropped like a stone.

She barely had time to let out a surprised yelp before she hit the water, and sank like the stone she had fallen as.

She wasn't sure how much later it was when she came to, coughing and spluttering. Someone was carrying her. Someone female. She looked up into the black-masked face of a concerned looking woman with long blonde hair wearing... well, not a whole lot, actually. Skimpy black costume with a gold lightning bolt down the chest.

"... th.. thanks," Xander managed.

The woman deposited her onto a large pier on the Brooklyn side of the river. "You're lucky I was passing by, Miss," she said. "You're a mutant, right? You should know better than to fly over the East River of all places if you don't have full control of your powers."

Xander wasn't exactly sure what a mutant was, but she nodded all the same, too mortified to argue. "... I didn't expect..." she began.

"It doesn't matter what you expected, Miss. Do you know how many people drown in the East River every year?"

"I didn't realize I'd be landing in corpseapalooza," Xander muttered defensively.

"And you're too heavy to be much use at swimming, so it's doubly stupid. I don't want this to happen again, got it?"

Xander sighed, resigning herself to be lectured. "... I got it. It won't happen again."

The woman nodded. "Be careful out there. Some people don't react well to the sight of mutants outside of the Xavier grounds. I'd escort you back there myself, but I'm already late for a meeting. Can I trust you to go straight home?"

Xander nodded. "Straight home," she repeated.

The woman nodded once more, then lifted off into the air, and flew off towards the horizon.

Xander let out a long, slow breath, and then shuddered. She'd almost DIED. If that woman, whoever she was, hadn't...

Ugh.

The immediate crisis behind her, the events which had precipitated it rushed back into her thoughts, and she scowled, particularly when her very first thought was to return to the Baxter Building. "... Call me untrusting," she said to the still muggy, still uncomfortably warm night air, "But I don't think going back to the people who wanted to test whether or not I'd sacrifice my life for one of them is the best idea just now."

Shivering in the hot air, far more exhausted than she'd ever been in her life, dripping wet from head to toe, her shoes squishing with every step, Xander - Karen - turned and walked off into Brooklyn to find a place to wait out the night.

* * *

><p>Morning came earlier than Karen would have liked. Xander. Whatever. It hardly mattered right now. She'd just spent the night in a homeless shelter, and after breaking the bed she'd tried to use, she'd wound up just sleeping on the floor. The 85 Lexington Avenue Women's Shelter. She'd found it after wandering the streets of Brooklyn for three hours, and the people there had been kind, had given her a place to shower and to sleep. Come morning, the girl who called herself Karen Starr almost felt human again.<p>

But it was only for the night. Stretching, blinking owlishly, Karen Starr walked out into the morning light.

When the sunlight hit her skin, she let out a gasp of sudden pleasure. It felt AMAZING. Better than almost ANYTHING. Better than the Sock Puppet of Love, even. ... well, almost. "Great googily moogily!" she exclaimed, provoking dirty looks from some of the other women who were leaving the shelter with her.

So caught up was she in the pleasurable sensations provoked by direct sunlight upon her skin, in the feeling of power that it produced as her cells began the slow process of recharging their solar batteries that she failed to notice the other event brought on by her exposure to sunlight: motes of light gathering around her, coalescing into a ghostly shape behind her.

Karen walked forward, grinning almost drunkenly. "Wow," she all but giggled. "Just... wow."

And then the ghostly shape passed through her, gained definition, and resolved into the image of Power Girl; insubstantial as the mist, but undeniably present. She looked around suspiciously, glared at Karen, and then said, "Two questions for you, blondie: one, who the hell are you, and two, what the HELL do you think you're doing with my body?"

Karen stared. "... Er..." she began awkwardly. "It's... not what you think?"

_**End Chapter 02**_

* * *

><p>Author's note: Yes, I know that he was quoting Tolkien. He knows it, too.<p> 


	3. With Great Power

A New World in my View  
>by P.H. Wise<br>A Marvel Comics Crossover Fanfic

Chapter 3 - With Great Power...

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby.

* * *

><p>Karen stared incredulously at the image of Power Girl floating in the air before her, sunbeams illuminating her translucent body in strange ways. "P... Power Girl?"<p>

Power Girl kept right on glaring. "My body," she said with exaggerated patience, "Stolen by you. Explanation. Waiting for. "

"I..." Karen began. "I didn't..." She struggled to recover her composure, completely failed, and kept on going, "I didn't do it on purpose!"

"Thanks," Power Girl replied. "That's helpful. A complete stranger is running around in my body, doing God knows what with it, but hey, at least she didn't do it on purpose! I'd thought that when we dealt with Ultra-Humanite, I'd be done with this sort of nonsense!"

The girl who still thought of herself as Xander Harris's eyes widened slightly at that. "Wait, that was real?"

Power Girl's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What was real?"

"The comics. You and Ultra-Humanite. Terra getting her brain swapped. Ridiculous cheesy suitors from outer space?" Karen's voice dropped in volume, and she blushed as she said the next bit: "... Pregno-rays?"

Power Girl glared. "How do you...? Comics? How do you know about all of that? I never told ANYONE about that stupid ray."

It suddenly occurred to Karen that everyone on the street was pointedly not looking at her, and doing their level best to avoid her gaze. She flushed red. "... I'm the only one who can see you. Aren't I?" It wasn't a question. "Great. Stuck as a girl in some weird alternate dimension, and now having an argument with an invisible friend that only I can see. Isn't it funny how the earth never opens up and swallows you when you want it to?"

The sight of a young mother edging her five year old child away from the crazy girl as they made their way down the street was her only reply.

Ten minutes later saw Karen walking back across the Brooklyn Bridge, trying not to look down into the river that had nearly claimed her life the previous day. The sunlight still felt amazing, but somehow having a ghostly Power Girl that only she could see badgering her constantly took the shine off of things. "Look, I told you," Karen said, "I don't know how I wound up in your body! Hey, how do you know isn't my body transformed into one that matches yours? Huh? … yeah, ok, so that's not likely." She grimaced, ignoring the people who were staring at her as she crossed the bridge. "There was a bet, and I lost. I had to dress up as you for Halloween. One minute I'm in Sunnydale being a responsible student and doing my civic duty chaperoning a bunch of kids, the next I'm falling from the sky into this weird not-comic-book-land that's like if they took all the real comic book heroes, and then filed all the names off!" She paused a moment. "Like the Fantastic Four. They're like... like someone was totally impressed with the success of the Justice League of America, and just threw together a group of random knockoff superheroes to try to capitalize on the..."

Power Girl didn't seem amused. "Are you actually thinking about what you're babbling, or is that just a stream of random syllables coming out of your mouth that only happens to resemble speech?"

"Hey!" Karen said, faking a hurt tone to her voice, "I don't babble! … I run on. Every now and again I yammer."

"Then you're yammering a hell of a lot. Whatever. So I get that you're just some random girl who dressed as me for Halloween..." Power Girl trailed off. "Hey, why is dressing as me a punishment for losing a bet?" She looked nonplussed. Then she frowned. "... are you a guy?"

Karen blushed red.

"I don't believe this. I get that men want my body, but I didn't think they wanted it like THAT!"

Karen blushed a deeper shade of red.

"Though aren't there easier ways of turning yourself into a woman? Between magic, hormones, surgery, super science..."

… and Karen moved clear past embarrassment into full blown mortified. … until she noticed Power Girl's slight, almost imperceptible smile. "... You're messing with me."

Power Girl grinned. "I'm messing with you," she confirmed. "We really do need to figure this out, though." She considered Karen for a moment. "What's your name, anyways?"

"Karen Starr," Karen replied.

Power Girl raised an eyebrow, and waited.

"... Xander Harris," Karen said, all but sinking into the heels of her shoes as she walked. "Look, I just want to find a way to go home and go back to normal, OK?"

Power Girl nodded. "On that we agree. I'd say it was a pleasure to meet you, but under the circumstances..."

"Understandable," Karen said. She looked down at the pavement. "... So what now?"

Power Girl met Karen's gaze, her expression serious. "Tell me everything that's happened since you arrived here. Everything."

She did.

* * *

><p>Karen's stomach was growling. She didn't have a penny to her name, and her stomach was growling. She knew it was even more hot and miserable today than it had been yesterday, but she didn't <strong>feel<strong> it. She felt... comfortable. Pleasant. The warmth of the sun on her skin drove away the feeling of hot mugginess and left her... well, it would be better if she weren't hungry, anyways. The smell of pizza was almost overwhelming. She gave a long, longing look towards the pizza place on the corner. Stupid enhanced sense of smell. … Stupid EVERYTHING, actually. "Your powers suck," she muttered.

"Not my fault you're not woman enough to handle them," Power Girl replied cheerfully.

"... Aren't I supposed to be super everything? How come I can't fly?"

"You can."

"Liar."

"No, seriously. You can. You just have to want to."

Karen frowned. "... Whatever. I'm hungry, I'm tired, and I'm broke. Yay me."

Power Girl rolled her eyes. "Don't be such a baby. Another couple of days exposure to sunlight, and you won't get tired anymore. A couple of months, and you won't need to eat or sleep, either, unless you want to."

"I won't last a couple of months if I'm dead of hunger before I get there," Karen snapped.

"It must be so difficult for you, not having eaten since dinner yesterday. Yep. Pretty much on the brink of starvation."

"Sure," Karen said. "Mock my pain."

"Excuse me, miss?"

Karen turned at the unfamiliar voice. A man in blue jeans and a t-shirt. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Tall. "Yeah?" she asked.

"... Who are you talking to?"

Karen glared. The man backed away. And then her stomach growled. Loudly. "... it's not really stealing if we're starving, is it?" Karen asked.

"I don't know," Power Girl replied. "Tell you what - you get towards starvation and we'll talk about it."

"... How am I supposed to.."

"Geeze, you whine a lot," Power Girl said, interrupting Karen.

Karen shut her mouth and kept walking. Five minutes later, she'd left the smell of pizza behind her. She was approaching a small square with a lovely little fountain full of pennies at the bottom of a long, broad stairway that led up to a savings and loans branch she didn't actually recognize. Other side of the street was shops. Shops, shop, shop. Yay shops. It was cruel, she decided, to walk past so many shops filled with useful stuff (and not-so-useful stuff) when she had no money and no way of getting it that didn't involve crime.

"... Maybe I should go back to the Fantastic Four," Karen muttered.

Power Girl shrugged. "Maybe you should."

Karen scowled. "... No. They set me up. Ambushed me as part of some weird test. Wanted me to be willing to die for one of them. That's not something a friend does to a friend."

"You're the one who brought it up," Power Girl pointed out.

Karen opened her mouth to reply, but whatever she might have said was lost: at that moment, there was a tremendous crash, and people came running out of a nearby bank.

Karen jumped, looked towards the bank, looked around, and kept walking.

Power Girl's eyes narrowed. "What do you think you're doing?"

Karen blinked. "... huh?"

"It's a bank robbery! Happening right in front of you!"

"...yeah? So?"

"So you've got my powers! You're not up to full strength, I admit, but there's a crime happening right in front of you, and you've got the ability to do something about it, and you're walking away?"

Karen rubbed the back of her neck. "Er... isn't that something for the police?"

Another crash, followed by more screams, and then the distinct sound of a bank vault door being ripped off its hinges.

"Xander..." Power Girl said warningly.

"You want me to go stop a bank robbery?" Karen asked, still not quite believing the other girl.

"GET IN THERE AND STOP IT!"

"All right, all right! I'm going!"

Somewhat belatedly, Karen rushed through the doors of the bank. … only to take a thrown bank vault door to the face. She went flying back down the steps and onto the street. Someone screamed. And then she got back up. "Ok, THAT was uncalled for," she said. And then she picked up the vault door and threw it back the way it came as hard as she could. It went flying through the remains of the entrance to the bank and there were several loud crashes as it smashed through who knows how many internal walls.

"XANDER! You can't just throw a bank vault door! You might have KILLED someone!"

Karen's eyes widened. "... you said I needed to do something!"

"NOT THAT!"

There was a sound like tearing metal, and then half of the vault door was shoved back out of the bank entrance, followed immediately by a tall man in a green and black striped shirt, carrying an enormous backpack bulging with cash.

"Get him?" Karen asked.

"Get him!" Power Girl confirmed.

That was all she needed.

The Sandman had known SOMEONE was out here - bank vault doors don't just throw themselves - but the tall blonde girl in wrinkled jeans and an equally wrinkled t-shirt wasn't what he was expecting to charge him. He barely had time to react.

Karen hit him hard. So hard he lost his grip on the backpack he'd only had half-on. The strap tore, and the backpack went tumbling off even as he slammed into the stairs leading up to the bank, leaving a crater.

No cape. No mask. Just some girl. "... So," he said, rising back to his feet, eyes narrowed. "Mutie girl thinks she's a hero?"

"People keep calling me that," Karen muttered. Then she raised her voice. "You. Bank robbing. Me, here to stop. Got it?"

Sandman laughed. "All right, girl. Let's see what you've got."

Battle was joined. Empowered by what sunlight she had managed to absorb in the last hour and a half, Karen was an unsubtle fighter. Not that she'd ever been particularly subtle - or even skilled - back when she'd been Xander. She knew the bare basics, and it showed. She went all out, charging him and attacking him again and again. Driving him back towards the bank. Smashing the stairs completely to rubble in the process. People were running and screaming, but there wasn't any sign of police sirens yet.

And then Sandman stopped playing around: his fist visibly hardened into massive spiked pile-driving things, and he started to hit back. His first blow send Karen flying into the building across the street and through the wall of a clothing shop, sending brick and mortar spraying in all directions, with people screaming and continuing to run.

Karen had landed headfirst in the lingerie section of the shop, and had to swipe several bras off of her head to clear her vision. Then she got up and flew back at him, zoomed under his fists, and hit him as hard as she could.

His flesh was sand. It gave. Her fist came out the other side. And THEN his body solidified.

Karen's eyes widened as she tugged on her arm, trying to wrench it free. "Er..."

Sandman grinned.

"Can we talk about this?"

"Sure." A pile-driver fist hit her in the face, and it HURT. Another one smashed into the top of her head, forcing her downwards. Then another cratered the sidewalk she was standing on. Another. Another. Another. Her world momentarily dissolved in a haze of pain. Then the ground gave way beneath her, and she fell into the subway track.

"Ow."

No train coming. That was good. Grimacing, Karen rose to her feet. "Damnit..." she muttered, and flew back up out of the hole. Sandman wasn't looking in her direction, so when she ripped a street light out of the ground and started using it like a mallet in an enormous, psychotic game of whack-a-mole, he was taken completely by surprise. First blow squashed him flat. He reacted to the second: He dispersed, reforming next to her... and took a street light to the side of the head, dispersed, reformed, dispersed, reformed, dispersed, reformed behind her, struck her in the back, and off she went, plowing through two vehicles before coming to rest on the hood of a third.

"OK," Karen muttered. "The 'charge in and fight' plan isn't working very well. Got another one?"

"... it usually works for me," Power Girl replied, feeling a little embarrassed. "Charge, fight, smash, laugh in the face of danger."

"Yeah, I'm more of a 'laugh in the face of danger, and then run away' person, myself."

Sandman frowned. "... Are you talking to yourself?"

Karen opened her mouth to answer, and got a blast of sand to the mouth for her trouble, which knocked her back and sent her into a coughing fit. "That's cheating!" she managed, spitting out sand as best she could.

"You picked this fight, mutie. You don't get to complain about my methods."

Karen charged again, this time delivering a spectacularly unskilled kick to Sandman's midsection. … Or trying to. He caught her leg in mid-kick, grabbed onto her foot with his other hand, and began to smash her repeatedly into the ground head first a dozen times, leaving a dozen craters in the street. "Ow, OW, OW, damnit!" she hissed. "This isn't..." She ducked under another punch. "Working!" Yet another blow sent her plowing into the side of another vehicle.

Her clothes were getting torn pretty spectacularly, and Karen didn't like that one bit. So she picked up the armored car that had been parked out in front of the bank and threw it at the Sandman.

It missed. By six meters. And crashed into the fountain, the doors were ripped off of their hinges, and money tumbled out into the water.

"... Ooops," she said.

"You know," Sandman said, "You're really bad at this. Amateur hour is over, kid. Why don't you go home and tell your mom all about it?"

Karen glared.

"... you have got to be kidding me," a woman said from somewhere above. Karen looked up, and spotted what was quite possibly the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen looking down from the roof of a building: long white hair, green eyes, a stunningly gorgeous face and figure, and clad in an incredibly revealing skin tight and bosom-baring black leather catsuit.

Karen's mouth went dry. Her eyes widened.

"Pay attention, kid. Uncle Marko's gonna teach you a thing or two about fighting." Accompanying the words came a fist to the face. Or would have.

At that moment, Karen whirled around to face the Sandman, and her system flush with hormones from being more than a little turned on by the sight of the woman in black. She felt heat. And then it was blazing out from her eyes in a blast of incandescent radiance.

Sandman's attack didn't stop. Her heat vision struck him full in the arm; the arm was instantly fused to glass. The glass shattered into a million pieces as he uppercutted her with the force of a semi.

Karen went flying.

"Oh hell..." the woman in black had time to say before Karen collided with her, bowling her over and nearly crushing her - would have crushed her, if not for the reinforcements built into her suit.

"Um... hi," Karen managed, staring at the beautiful woman she'd landed on.

"... get off..." the woman in black groaned.

Karen's thoughts went wild. "... Here? Now?"

"... get off of me..."

"... Oh." Karen rose to her feet, blushing like hell, stumbled a bit, reached out to steady herself on the roof with her left hand, and accidentally punched a hole in the roof of the building. "Oops." Then, her balance regained, she reached out to help the woman in black back to her feet.

The woman in black took one look at the hand, another at the hole in the roof, and stood up on her own. "Your villain's getting away," she said.

Karen blinked, and rushed to the edge of the roof just in time to spot the Sandman dash into an alleyway. She tensed her legs to jump after him... and then the sound of sirens filled the air. Startled, she lost her balance and fell off the building, crushing yet another car.

The woman in black looked down and shook her head as Karen climbed out from the wreckage of the car and tried to get glass out of her hair. "Wow..." she called. "You're... pretty bad at this. You sure you really want to be doing this?"

Karen glared up at the woman. "No! But... what else could I do?"

The woman shrugged. "If you say so. Hey, good luck, kid! … You're gonna need it. I'd totally give you a comforting hug, but you'd probably just get off on it, and you'd probably break my ribs." She winked, and then she was gone.

The police pulled up a moment later, and even as Karen turned to face their vehicles, a dozen officers leveled their weapons at her. "Put your hands in the air!" one shouted.

It was then that Karen realized that her fight had turned a functioning block of the city into... rubble. Mangled metal. Shredded cars. Buildings missing walls. The steps leading up to the bank completely pulverized. Sand everywhere. Glass everywhere. Armored car in the destroyed fountain. Water still fountaining from the shattered fire hydrant she'd been punched through.

"Um..." she began. "... oops?"

The police were strangely unimpressed.

* * *

><p>"Do you know how much trouble you're in, miss?" The police officer was large, well muscled, and bald as an egg, and even though she knew that she could break him into pieces with one hand tied behind her back, Karen was kind of intimidated.<p>

"Look, I didn't do it on purpose..."

"Yeah, yeah. You're lucky we didn't sick the Sentinels on your ass. It's in your best interest to cooperate. Sandman is a known criminal. An accomplice of his - even a really incompetent accomplice, is going to be in for a rough time."

"I'm not his accomplice," she snapped.

The cop gave her a flat look. "Not his accomplice?" he echoed. "You weren't helping him to destroy an entire city block to send a message to the city?"

"NO!"

"It wasn't your intent to cause MILLIONS of dollars in property damage?"

"NO!"

"You were trying to stop him? Make sure nobody got hurt?"

"YES!"

"Then you didn't try hard enough!" the policeman roared. "You caused more property damage than he did!"

"... not on purpose," Karen replied, and even she knew it was a weak excuse.

She was in a police interrogation room. The bald officer was pacing back and forth like a caged animal. Power Girl's ghostly image had vanished when the police had shown up, and Karen hadn't seen her since.

"Twelve people are in the hospital! You're lucky nobody's dead!"

Karen shrank into her seat. "... I'm sorry," she whispered.

That only seemed to make the cop angrier.

It went on like that for almost an hour. Hashing and rehashing her story, the cop not believing her, questioning her on the tiniest little details, occasionally muttering about how she was an 'irresponsible mutie freak,' and generally being less than pleasant company. It became clear fairly quickly that the cop wasn't getting what he wanted from the interview, and that only made him more hostile.

Finally, a knock came at the door, and the bald officer went to answer it. Then, scowling, he turned back to her. "You've got friends in high places. Someone's here to see you." He left the room.

A moment later, Ben Grimm strode into the room in all his rocky glory.

Karen's cheeks flushed with fresh shame at the sight of him.

"Hey kid," he said. He didn't bother trying to sit down.

"... Hey," she replied.

"Heard you gave Sue and Johnny the slip, tore up a bank."

"I didn't do it on..."

"Purpose, yeah, I know."

Karen sighed. "... I'm in trouble, aren't I?"

"... Reed says ya need training. I think he's right."

Karen nodded. "... Not likely to get it if they nail me to the wall."

"Well, about that. See, when I came here, I didn't actually come alone. Reed and Sue pulled in some favors. We've kind of got this deal worked out for you with the cops if yer willing to take it. Up to you. We pay for the damage you caused. You get probation and go to this school for training people like you. In return, they don't prosecute you for mass destruction of property. Sound good?"

Karen swallowed heavily. "... why would you do that for me after..."

"What, after that test? Yeah, that was pretty stupid of em. There are better ways of finding out what sort of person you are than that." Ben shrugged. "Ain't important. What matters is the offer's open, if you're willing to take it."

Karen thought about it for a long moment, and then sighed. "... I don't think I have a choice."

"You always have a choice, kid," Ben said.

She didn't have anything to say to that.

"Right," Ben said. "Then get out there into the hall and meet your new teacher."

With reluctance, Karen rose to her feet. The door opened. She stepped out. The bald cop looked like he'd eaten a lemon, and the sight made her want to smile - she might have, too, if the situation hadn't been what it was. Three blonde girls in the hall, next to...

Her eyes fell upon her new teacher.

"Karen Starr, meet Emma Frost."

Karen stared, and when she spoke, she could only say, "...Shpadoinkle!"

Some things never changed.

_**End Chapter 03**_


	4. The Xavier Institute

There were any number of things Karen had expected from the 'Headmistress of the Xavier Academy for Gifted Youngsters.' Emma Frost wasn't one of them. Here she'd been expecting some kind of severe, sexless, Nordic Minerva Mcgonagall. ... Two out of four wasn't bad, right? She stared at the woman, eyes wide, like a deer staring into the headlights of an oncoming car. Emma's lips curled into the faintest of amused half-smiles. "So you're my newest student, then? Very well." She looked to the bald police officer. "I trust everything is in order, Sergeant?"

The sergeant didn't meet her gaze. He was too busy staring at her chest. In his defense, she was wearing an amazingly skimpy white costume which involved not very much fabric at all, and poorly concealed beneath a stylish white cloak. After a moment, he tore his gaze away. "Just go," he muttered.

"Very good," Emma said. "Girls? We're leaving." Without another word, she spun smoothly on her heel and made for the exit, head held high, acting for all the world as if she owned the place. Maybe she did: nobody tried to contest the claim made by her body language. The triplets followed, and after a moment's hesitation, Karen did as well.

A car was waiting in front of the police station. Surprisingly unremarkable, in light of the woman who had arrived in it. Emma Frost and the triplets went to the vehicle. Karen lingered behind.

"You OK, kid?" It was Ben Grimm's voice. He'd followed them out, and now stood at the entrance to the police station a few feet away.

Karen turned to look him in the eye, opened her mouth to say... something. She wasn't sure what. It died on her lips.

"Yeah," he said. "Figured it was something like that. Look, I ain't so good at that mushy stuff, but if you ever need to talk to anyone, give me a call, ok?"

Karen struggled for a moment, trying to find the words she wanted. Struggling to give voice to the enormity of her situation. To her anger and frustration and fear at being stuck in another world, and another body. Struggling to find the words to voice her gratitude towards Ben. Her regret for how badly she'd messed up. Her lingering anger at his team mates. She wanted to say, 'I need to tell you a few things...' She wanted to say, 'thank you for everything. She wanted to say, 'You've been a friend when others haven't.' But what she said was, "... See you around, Ben."

"Yeah," he said.

She got into the car, shut the door, and sank into the leather seat as Emma Frost took her away to the next stage of her new life.

* * *

><p>A New World in my View<br>by P.H. Wise  
>A Power Girl crossover fanfic<p>

Chapter 4: The Xavier Academy

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby.

* * *

><p>The car came to a halt in front of a shop on Madison Avenue. Karen felt a moment of confusion. Why were they stopping? She looked up at the sign: Chanel. It meant nothing to her. The mood in the vehicle had been... subdued. Somber, even. There hadn't been any occasion to speak, and neither Emma nor the triplets had said a word. But now... "Um, excuse me, Miss Frost? Why are we..."<p>

Emma met Karen's gaze. "You have nothing to wear but the clothing you have on, correct?" At Karen's nod, she went on, "Celeste, Irma, and Phoebe are going to assist you in acquiring a new wardrobe."

If the triplets had seemed passive before, they were indignant now. "What?" the first asked. "Why do we have to," the third said, "Babysit the new girl?" the second finished.

Emma gave them a level look, and they relented. "... Fine," they said in unison. Then three sets of eyes turned to Karen. "Let's get this over with."

Karen grimaced. Shopping. This was going to be ugly.

Twenty minutes later...

"Absolutely not," the triplets said in unison. "We don't know how you managed to find the one store on Madison Avenue that sells tacky Hawaiian shirts, but the answer is no. "

Karen frowned. "Hey! I like Hawaiian shirts!"

"They're a travesty. An offense against nature. We draw the line here."

Karen grumbled under her breath, but relented, putting them back on the rack. A few minutes later, she was in yet another store, looking through the available boxers.

"No boxers," one of the triplets said. Irma, Karen thought, but she couldn't be sure.

Karen raised an eyebrow. "What? What's wrong with boxers?"

The triplets exchanged long-suffering looks. And then they told her. Karen's expression went quickly from irritated to thoroughly embarrassed. "... Oh," she said. "... explains why I've been getting major wedgies every day for the last month..."

The Three-in-One stared incredulously at Karen for a long moment. "... Mother is punishing us," one said. The other two nodded in agreement.

Karen glared.

Finally, after two hours, ten arguments, and six fervent wishes that the ground would open up and swallow them to relieve them of this torture, Karen and the triplets walked out to the street to meet Emma's car once again, each carrying several shopping bags full of clothing. It had been like pulling teeth, and several times they had attempted to resort to mind control only to be stopped by Emma Frost's observing presence, but it was done.

The car pulled away from the curb, and began the long journey through traffic out of the city to Westchester County. They arrived just before nightfall. Before them lay the Xavier Academy for Gifted Youngsters. ... or what was left of it.

Karen's first impression of the place was cemented by the security checkpoint in front of the school... manned by a giant, ominous robot. It was visible long before the school was, and Karen couldn't help but stare. It scanned the car in turn, and then, after a brief conversation with the driver, stepped aside, allowing the car to continue. A second security checkpoint waited just inside of the main gates, this one manned by soldiers. Karen stared out the window, her eyes wide as the car made its way down the long driveway to the mansion which housed her new school. It was damaged, and repairs were under way. Extensive construction efforts were being made. New buildings going up. Scaffolding was up all over the place. But that wasn't what drew Karen's attention: what drew her attention was the military encampment on the outer edge of the grounds, the giant robots patrolling the grounds, and the refugee tents set up all over the grounds.

It seemed less like a school and more like an ethnic ghetto. Every joke she'd been ready to make upon arrival died on her lips.

The car stopped. The doors opened. Emma Frost and the Stepford Cuckoos rose gracefully from their seats, stepped out of the car, and made their way to the doors of the main building, and Karen followed close behind, feeling small and lost.

* * *

><p>Noriko Ashida - Nori to her friends - looked up as the doors to the mansion swung open. Hmm. Miss Frost was back. The Cuckoos, too. And... someone new. New faces. A pang of sorrow ran through her at the thought. New faces.<p>

… So many old faces gone...

She shook her head, as if the motion would shake loose the sadness she felt. Figures that whatever new student Emma brought in would be another blonde. Tall, too. Gorgeous. And stacked. And way more muscular than she had any right to be with a bust that size. ... and looked like she could be Miss Frost's niece. A little less aristocratic, a little more... she wasn't sure what. Nori frowned thoughtfully, and exchanged glances with Laura. They'd been heading down the main staircase together when the door opened. "Hey Mindee," she called. "Who's the new girl?"

Emma kept walking. The new girl stopped. The girl identified as Mindee turned. "You know that's not my name," she said.

"... Sorry. Irma."

Irma nodded. "Nori, meet Karen. Karen, this is Nori."

Phoebe gestured to the other girl, "And that's Laura. Don't try to wake her up in the morning."

Nori managed not to grimace at that, and Laura blushed.

"Er, I know I'm gonna regret asking..."

"Shut up, Phoebe," Nori said simultaneously with Phoebe saying, "She stabs people."

"... Right," Karen said. "Nori, Laura, I, uh, it's nice to meet you."

"You too," Nori said, not really feeling it. When Emma beckoned the new girl to follow her upstairs, Nori felt more relieved than anything else. Too much was happening, too quickly. A month and a half ago, more than 90% of the world's mutant population had spontaneously become human, herself not among them. Sentinel Squad O*N*E stationed there 'for their protection.' The school grounds filling up with every mutant refugee from here to the moon. They called themselves the 198. Someone decided that was how many mutants were left in the world. … It wasn't true, though. There were plenty more than that. Just... not enough.

Forty two dead students.

… the memorial was today. Was it selfish that after forty two former students had died, Nori was just glad that Prodigy was being allowed to stay? Forty two of her friends were dead, but her depowered boyfriend was being allowed to stay. Did she have any right to be happy over that?

She'd been on her way to see him, actually, when the door had opened to admit Miss Frost and the others. She shrugged apologetically at Laura, and then headed down the stairs and further into the mansion, where she knew he was waiting.

For Nori Ashida, a new student barely rated as a blip on the radar.

* * *

><p>Karen followed Emma Frost into her office with a sense of growing trepidation, more and more unsure that coming here hadn't been a huge mistake. The door shut. Emma walked to her desk and sat down and looked at Karen for a long moment. "... All right, Mister Harris. What am I going to do with you?"<p>

Karen felt a stab of panic shoot through her. "...Erk!" Emma's slightly amused smile did little to comfort her. 'Oh God, she knows!' she thought in a panic.

"You do not shield your thoughts well, Mr. Harris," Emma said. "Why don't we just pretend that the first thing you did when you walked into my office was to confess the entirity of your absurd situation, and take it from there?"

Karen tried very hard not to stare at Emma Frost. Emotions raced beneath the surface of her skin. She felt humiliated. Ashamed. … A little bit turned on. More than a little, actually. Damnit. She'd thought that linoleum-induced horniness would have gone away when she turned into a girl. 'Oh God. What am I gonna do? Gorgeous mind-reading woman? I still think about sex every other second! … Pi. Pi R squared. Naked girls. Naked women. Naked Miss Frost...!' She began to panic as the frantic imagery flitting through her head only grew worse.

Emma raised an eyebrow. "Do stop thinking those sorts of things about me before I turn your brain off," she said.

Karen giggled nervously. "Er... yes. Stopping. Right away. Right now." 'Damnit!' "You know that if you turned my brain off, I'd probably tip forwards and fall through the floor, right?"

"We have some very good carpenters and flooring specialists on retainer," Emma replied dryly. "But down to business, Mr. Harris. Though you are not a mutant, Charles Xavier made a promise to have you trained at his institute. Considering your lack of control over your powers and their destructive potential, I am inclined to agree that training is needed. But that does not mean I will allow you to endanger my students. They have been through a great deal of trauma this past month, and I will not have you add to it, am I understood?"

… Emma was kind of scary. "Yes, ma'am," Karen managed, sounding (and feeling) suitably cowed.

"Good. None of us has the luxury of being a child anymore. You least of all."

Karen didn't glare, but she did feel a flash of anger. "I'm not a child," she said.

"Are you an adult?"

Karen didn't answer. Couldn't answer. She felt a sensation like pins and needles crawling through her brain as she stood before the gaze of the telepathic headmistress of the Xavier Academy.

"Of course you aren't," Emma answered for her. "You've never really had to take responsibility for anything in your life. You've never needed to. It's perfectly understandable: under normal circumstances, seventeen year old boys are not expected to be particularly responsible." Calm. Collected. Hard as ice. Karen shivered under Emma's gaze. "But these are not ordinary circumstances. Not anymore. You are not a boy any longer, and neither are you human. You have been given a body with a potential for power that astounds even me. The Fantastic Four saw that. They kept you away from the thing which empowers you for over a month while they attempted to discover your quality. And then they put you to the test, and you passed, only to run away in a childish rage once you realized what they'd done."

"Hey, that's not fair!" Karen was about to go on, but Emma interrupted her.

"No, it's not," Emma agreed.

"What kind of friend puts someone to the..." Karen trailed off, "No, it's not?" she echoed, confused. "You're agreeing with me?"

"It isn't fair," Emma said, "But life rarely is. Do you think life has ever been fair to mutants? ... or to..." She met Karen's gaze. "The Slayer?"

"Stay out of my head," Karen tried to growl. It came out as more of a whimper.

"Do you think for a moment that Buffy Summers asked to be made into a freak and an outcast just so that the rest of you could have the chance to live the sort of life that would allow you to never need to know about her, or the sacrifices she made?"

"Buffy has nothing to do..."

Emma cut her off again. "And then there was your disastrous attempt at foiling a bank robbery," she began, "During which you and the Sandman, between the two of you, destroyed an entire city block."

"I didn't mean to," Karen insisted.

"No, you didn't. And that should illustrate my point. You caused more destruction than the bank robber, and **you didn't mean to.**"

Karen fell silent. There was nothing she could reply to that.

"... but what if you had meant to?" Emma asked. "What if all the potential of your body had been given to someone worse? Someone like The Master? What might he have done with your new body?"

"... once he got it up to full power, there'd be no stopping him," Karen conceded.

"Hence the need of the test, however imperfectly executed.

Karen was silent for a long moment. "... It's not like I came up with the idea of trying to stop a bank robbery on my own," she said.

"You refer to the original consciousness of the body you now inhabit," Emma said.

Karen's eyes widened. "... original consciousness?" she asked, not really sure she wanted to think about the implications of that particular statement.

"I did tell you," Power Girl said, her ghostly form emerging from Karen's body. "And for what it's worth, Xander, I'm sorry about the bank robbery situation. ... I never should have pushed you to intervene. I..." she shrugged uncomfortably, "I have this annoying habit of acting before I think."

Emma looked amused. "Then it appears you have something in common. Power Girl, I presume?"

Power Girl looked up in surprise. "You can see me?"

"I'm a telepath," Emma replied, as if that explained everything. After a moment's thought, Karen realized that it kind of did.

"I'm reasonably certain that I know what Mr. Harris wants." Emma went on, "But what do you want?"

Power Girl frowned. Her track record with telepaths wasn't exactly a good one, and even in her ghostly form, she wasn't altogether sure that Emma couldn't just rip the thoughts out of her, or make her respond however she wanted without her ever knowing the difference. Still, she answered as honestly as she could: "I want my body back, and I want to go home."

"What price would you pay to see it done?"

Power Girl eyed Emma Frost distrustfully. "... I'm not about to hurt innocent people, if that's what you mean," she said at last.

"And you include Xander Harris under the category of 'innocent people?'" Emma asked.

"Yes," Power Girl replied without hesitation.

"Good," said Emma.

Karen suddenly remembered to breathe. "... had me worried," she muttered.

"Very well, Mr. Harris. Power Girl. You may stay. Whether you tell the other students the truth of your situation or not I leave to your mutual discretion. You will attend classes here, you will undergo the same training as everyone else, and you will obey our rules, and in return, we will train Mr. Harris in the use of your powers. If you can not do these things, tell me now."

Even after all that, Karen WANTED to tell Emma Frost to go to hell, and she KNEW that Emma Frost knew it. ... But instead, Karen sighed. "... I don't have a problem with any of that," she lied.

Emma smiled a humorless smile. "Good."

* * *

><p>The memorial service happened that evening, after sunset. The dark seemed appropriate. Forty two dead students. Dead because one man believed that he was special. Believed that God had chosen him. The mood was as somber as Karen had ever experienced, and for once she didn't feel any urge to try to lift it whatever. She stood in silence as the faculty and students told stories of the people they'd lost. But it wasn't just about grief. Regret was the common denominator. If she hadn't already had such a vivid reminder of her own fallibility already today, Karen would have been... unkind to these people. These people who, in their friends' hour of need, when those friends had lost the very thing they had always been told made them special, had abandoned them, sent them away. Later, as she was moving her newly acquired wardrobe into her new room - a room she was going to be sharing with some girl named 'Surge' - she gave voice to her thoughts.<p>

"I'm supposed to learn from these people?" she asked incredulously, not really expecting an answer.

"Yeah," Power Girl replied, stepping out of Karen's shadow. "You are. ... in more ways than one."

"Oh," Karen replied. And then she understood. "Oh!"

"Yeah," Power Girl said. She paused. She had something to say, but she needed a moment to decide whether or not to say it. Then, at last, she said, "... Kal told me something, once," she began.

Karen felt a jolt of excitement at that. "Kal as in Kal-L?" she asked. "As in... Superman? Your Superman?"

Power Girl nodded, and Karen felt her sympathy for the other girl rise. "I don't know how much of his history you learned from those... comics you say are written about us," she began.

"About Superman? Just the basics. His real name is Clark Kent. He grew up in Smallville, Kansas. His parents are Jonathan and Martha Kent..."

Power Girl looked annoyed. "OK, so you know enough to completely destroy the life of any particular version of Superman," she said.

"Er... I guess I never thought of it like that."

Power Girl sighed. "It's not your fault. ... But getting back to the subject, I had a full blown Kryptonian education when I arrived on Earth, and I landed as an adult. But Kal? He showed up as a toddler, and he didn't know **anything.**"

Karen nodded. "Until all those years spent beneath the yellow sun woke up his powers." And then Karen felt like an idiot. "... yellow sun...?" She giggled. "I'm dumb. I can't believe I..."

Power Girl gave Karen a sidelong look. "Can't believe what?"

"I spent all that time trying to figure out why I didn't have your powers, and..." Karen shook her head. "Nevermind. Go on."

"So yeah, he didn't grow up as Kal-L. He grew up as, well, as Clark Kent. He didn't even know he wasn't human until he started to manifest his powers!"

As Power Girl - Kara - continued to talk, Karen, as carefully as she could, reached out to open the closet door. ... The handle broke off in her hand. Sighing, she stuck a finger through and cleaned out the remains of the mechanism that allowed it to stay shut, let it swing open, and then began to put her various shirts (and the occasional blouse, picked out by the Cuckoos) up onto clothes hangers.

"What I'm trying to say is, he wasn't this saviour from outer space. He was a kid from Kansas. ... I stepped out of my ship Kara Zor-L, but he..."

Karen paused her activity to look at Kara. "I get it," she said. "... It wasn't being an alien that made Superman the hero he was. ... it was being human. Right?"

Kara nodded. "That's part of it. ... he was who he was because he grew up a human. It wasn't Jor-L who made him into the man he was - it was John and Mary Kent. And once, when I was feeling lost, like I didn't know who I was, and people wanted me to be... him, and ..." Her voice was thick with emotion now, and Karen found herself wishing that she could put a comforting arm around the intangible girl. "He said that I was the one who would decide what I would become. Not him, not the reporters, not all the people who wanted me to be something I couldn't... me." Kara met Karen's gaze, then. "While you're here, you might feel like you're pulled in a dozen different directions, but remember: you're the one who decides what you become."

Karen smiled. "... Thanks, Kara," she said, and she meant it.

"There's something else, too. Something more."

Karen waited.

"... He said I was the most human person he knew."

Karen smiled, and for a few moments, neither of them said a word. And then Karen looked down. "... I'm not Superman, Kara."

"Neither am I," Kara Zor-L replied.

"And we already established that I'm bad at this 'being a hero' thing..."

"We've established that you're untrained," Kara corrected. "And Kal wouldn't expect us to be Superman. But we can sure as hell be the best damn Xander Harris and Kara Zor-L that we can, right? He believed in me, so how can I do any different?"

Karen couldn't find the words. Everything she could have said came up lacking. "I..." She cut off when the door suddenly opened, and the blue-haired Asian girl Karen had met earlier came walking into the room. She looked tired. Tired and sad.

"Thought I heard voices..." Nori murmured. "There's not anyone else in here, is there?"

Karen shook her head. "... Just me. I talk to myself, sometimes. It's kind of a bad habit."

"Right," Nori said. "You're Karen, right? I'm guessing by the whole 'you being in my room' thing that you're my new room mate."

"Yeah," Karen managed, struggling to push away the weight of the conversation she'd just had. "You're Nori, right?"

"Noriko, actually, but don't let that stop you." She paused a moment. "... I guess I should make with the greeting, you being a new student and all. ... I doubt we'll get many more, after everything that's happened."

Karen nodded. "I'm sorry for your loss," she said.

Noriko shrugged uncomfortably. "Thanks," she said. She glanced over at the new bed on the opposite side of the room from hers and raised an eyebrow. Thing looked like it was built to house the Juggernaut. "Gotta say, the bed's kind of an eyesore," she commented.

"What?" Karen asked, then followed Noriko's gaze. "Oh. Yeah. That's the bed. Probably seems like a bit much, but... Karen Starr, five hundred and twenty pound girl, at your service." She made a bow with an overly elaborate flourish.

"... Increased physical density, huh? That's cool." She glanced towards the windows, which were covered by new, very heavy curtains. The big dark, heavy curtains that let in no light whatever. "...The hell?"

"Ah..." Karen said, "Er... I'm trying to avoid too much exposure to sunlight?"

Noriko shook her head, "Right. Forget I asked." She grabbed some clothes to sleep in out of her dresser, headed over to the bathroom, and shut the door. The distinct sounds of the brushing of teeth and changing of clothes filtered through to Karen's increasingly sensitive ears. After a few minutes, Nori came back out, this time clad in a pair of shorts and a tank top... and her metal gauntlets. "So, you don't like sunlight, you weigh half a metric ton, and you talk to yourself. Anything else I should know?"

Karen briefly debated correcting Noriko, telling her about how sunlight fueled her powers, how she was having a hard time controlling them. She didn't, but she thought about it. "Sounds like everything to me," she said.

Nori flopped down onto her bed, and Karen started putting away her things again. Five minutes passed in silence, and for a little while, Karen wondered if Nori had fallen asleep. Then Nori asked, "You got a code name yet?"

"Code name?" Karen asked.

"Yeah," Nori said. "I'm Surge, for example." She held up her gauntleted hands as evidence, "I absorb electricity."

'She's trying not to cry,' Karen realized suddenly. "... You're not really interested in this conversation, are you?"

Nori looked down. "... sorry. I just..."

"Hey," Karen said, "I understand. I've lost people, too." She was thinking of Jesse. ... Jesse, who had once been just as close as Willow... and just like that, Karen felt a deep, desperate loneliness and homesickness rising up within her chest. Were Buffy and Willow still alive? … Was Giles? God, she wished... she wished... "... Everyone's lost people," she said.

Nori nodded, scrubbing stubbornly at her eyes.

"If you need anything...?"

"I... thanks, Karen."

Karen nodded. "Any time."

Afterwards, once all her things were put away, Karen took a long shower, spending a good ten minutes letting the warmth of the water soak into her skin. ... It still felt wrong. Her hair was getting longer now. No longer boy-short. Water cascaded down her breasts, and it worried her how good it felt. She wondered if... and then she brought her hands up to experimentally cup her own breasts, and it felt better than she'd imagined it would. She might have gone further if she hadn't known that her room mate was in the room outside the bathroom. … or if Kara hadn't poked her intangible head inside the shower, glowered at her disapprovingly, and asked, "You're not doing anything perverted with my body in there, are you?"

She sighed, finished her shower, and got ready for bed. Tomorrow, her classes began at the Xavier Academy. Tomorrow, she would meet the rest of her classmates in a context that wasn't the funeral of more than forty of their friends. Tomorrow she would begin to learn how to control her powers.

Karen was asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.

**End Chapter 4**


	5. The Calm Before

_**New Earth  
>Antarctica<br>Thirty Five Days Ago**_

Power Girl - Kara Zor-L - stood facing her duplicate. Her clone. The two of them faced off in the antarctic wilderness, snow whirling around them, neither paying it the slightest bit of attention, every bit of their awareness locked on the other. Except for the jet black hair and the black sports bra with black PVC pants and combat boots combo, the other girl was identical to Kara in every way.

"Hey," Power Girl said.

"Hey," the clone replied.

"Are you a clone?"

"Not exactly."

Kara's eyes narrowed. "I can see that. The jet black hair is a bit off the mark."

The clone smirked. "Yeah. I think my boss wanted to put his own spin on it. But I'm you in every way that counts."

And she was. God, the expression on her face, even the way her hair fell? Identical. Kara raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

The clone didn't. "Yeah." And then Kara shot up into the air to avoid the absurdly powerful blast of heat vision that the clone had just sent out. And battle began between the two daughters of Krypton, and the earth did tremble beneath their feet. They fought across the antarctic wilderness, their battle taking them halfway across the continent and back, and then to the laboratory beneath the ice where the clone had been born.

Kara grimaced as the black-haired clone flew her head first and backwards through tank after tank of failed clones before driving the back of her head six inches into the concrete wall at the far end of the complex. It took her a moment to recover her bearings, but the clone allowed her that moment. She stood up. "You're not bad at all. You got a name?"

The clone grinned. "Divine."

"Pleased to," Kara kicked off from the wall, rocketing towards Divine at break-neck speed, fist first. "MEET YOU!" she impacted, driving the other girl into the opposite wall and reducing it to rubble.

Things might have gone different. A plan was already under way to extract Divine from the situation. Her boss was watching. Ready to intervene. **About **to intervene. If it weren't for the actions of one man in a parallel world far removed from this one. A man who called upon the primal powers of Chaos, Transition, and Change to do his bidding.

He called it Janus, but it was so much more. A thing beyond time and space and the barriers which mortals called 'the walls between realities.' Ancient and timeless, terrible in wrath, a bit petulant, and often extremely annoying - particularly to the Man of Steel.

The ceiling split down the middle as an angry red tear in the fabric of space and time ripped into being directly above the brawling pair. Reddish lightning crackled from the tear, bolts striking first Kara and then Divine and joining them to the mystical circuit. The world went white, and when it faded, both the girls and the rip were gone.

A moment later, the door leading deeper into the complex opened with a hiss, and a very ordinary looking man with short brown hair stepped into the room, frowning deeply. "Well," Max Lord said. "This could be a problem."

* * *

><p>A New World in my View<br>by P.H. Wise  
>A Buffy Crossover Fanfic<p>

Chapter 05: The Calm Before

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby.

* * *

><p>The whole world seemed ablaze. Fire raged across the wreckage, the crackling of the flames mingling with the screams of the injured and the grieving. Every now and again, a limb could be glimpsed, half-crushed beneath the remains of the bus.<p>

"This can't be happening..." Noriko kept repeating, shaking her head in denial of the carnage, "This can't be..."

She spotted a body, and the bottom dropped out of her as she recognized it. "Oh, no..." she lifted a chunk of metal off of it and cast it aside. "Andrea..." The girl in the pink dress lay still amidst the burning wreckage. Still and dead and awful.

"HELP!" Noriko screamed. "SOMEONE HELP ME!"

The world faded to white.

Noriko sat up in bed and shuddered. The nightmare was still there. Every time she slept. Sometimes it matched the event. Sometimes it was her, or David lying dead under the rubble. Everything was... everything was wrong. Nothing was the way it was supposed to be. Professor Xavier's dream was dead. Sentinels stood guard at the Xavier Institute now. 'For their protection.'

It had taken a few days for things to really sink in. That this was how their lives were going to be now. A little over a month since everything had gone so horribly wrong.

Noriko rose to her feet, then, headed into the bathroom, stripped off the sweat-soaked clothes she'd slept in, turned on the shower, and stepped inside.

Ten minutes later, feeling a whole lot more human (or mutant, depending on who you asked), Nori came back out clad in her bathrobe. It was dark. The thick, heavy curtains allowed not even the tiniest glimpse of sunlight. She glanced towards the bed on which her new room mate was still sleeping, looked to the curtains, and then muttered, "F#!$ it. I want to feel the sun on my face."

She walked to the curtains and drew them open, filling the room with the light of the morning sun. She stood there at the window, then, looking out onto the grounds of the Xavier Institute. Watching the repairs. Watching the new construction. Watching the graveyard with its fourteen brand new headstones: fourteen formerly mutant children whose parents had refused to take them back even in death.

She didn't feel sad, looking at it. She didn't feel anything. Not about the deaths. Not about the fate of mutantkind. Not about the Sentinel she could see from her window. She felt... numb.

A moan from behind her broke her out of her apathetic trance. Then a second. And then something did pierce the armor of her apathy: surprise. The expression on Karen's sleeping face had become one of contentment. ...and that didn't sound to Nori like an 'I'm sleepy and you're letting sunlight shine on my face' type moan. That was more of a... no way.

Nori turned to stare at Karen. A thought occurred to her, then. She reached out and closed the curtains. Instantly, Karen stopped shifting, her moans ceased, and she settled back into a relaxed sleep.

And now a second emotion joined the first: incredulity. "No f#!$ing way," she muttered.

* * *

><p>When Karen woke up that morning, she woke to an empty room. Noriko was gone, which suited her just fine. She briefly considered just going back to sleep, but no, today was her first day at the Xavier Institute, and even if classes hadn't resumed from the Summer break yet... and probably wouldn't resume for a while to come considering everything that was going on, actually... well, she was still going to be training with instructors to master her powers, and...<p>

Karen woke up for the second time an hour later. Her clock read 9:00 AM. She staggered out of bed and made her way to the bathroom.

"I know, I know, but what else am I supposed to do?" It wasn't a voice Karen recognized, and when she looked around, she couldn't find its source. She frowned briefly, and then dismissed it from her mind.

Looked like the shower had been used. Probably before she'd woken up for the first time. She looked in the mirror and grimaced. She had one of the worst cases of bed-head she'd seen in a long time. Time to shower. Clothes came off. Water turned on. She stepped in.

"You should start shaving, by the way," Kara said.

Karen nearly jumped through the ceiling. Literally - her head's impact she left a significant dent in it. "GAAAH! YEEEEGH... Don't DO that!"

Kara laughed. "Sorry, but you really do need to start shaving. That's MY body you're in, and you're not maintaining it properly."

"I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not actually growing any facial hair, so why would I need to..." Karen grimaced, and looked down at her legs. "Oh," she said. A pause. "... Can we not talk about this right now?"

"When would you prefer to talk about it?"

"Oh, I don't know. How about never?"

"Come on, Xander. It'll be easy."

"Liar."

"I'm not going to stop bugging you until you agree."

Karen tried very hard not to grind her teeth.

Fifteen minutes later, Karen walked into the cafeteria, clad all in thick clothing with heavy gloves to minimize her contact with sunlight. Very little of the cafeteria wasn't exposed to direct sunlight, but she'd agreed to the training regimen Emma had proposed, and she wasn't about to back out just because avoiding direct sunlight was inconvenient. She picked up her food and sat down. Her hearing had been wonky all morning. It had started with just that one voice, but there had been more on the way down to breakfast, and now, with twenty or so students eating in the cafeteria that had been designed for over a hundred, she was trying NOT to hear every single conversation in the room in perfect clarity. Of course, the other students weren't the **only** thing she was trying to ignore.

"Come on, Xander," Kara said as Karen sat down. "What's the big deal? All I'm asking is for you to shave my legs for me. It's not like I'm asking you to shave my..."

"OOOKAY," Karen interrupted, "That's... more than I needed to hear. I..."

Those blonde triplets were staring at her from the next table over. Karen waved nervously. "Don't mind me," she said. Just being crazy. Talking. To myself. Not to anyone else."

"That's funny," one of them said, and Karen had no idea which one. "We thought you were talking to the other consciousness in your head."

Karen's eyes bugged out. "Is EVERYONE at this school a telepath?" she asked weakly.

"Not everyone," the triplets replied in unison, picking up their trays and moving to join Karen at her table. "You remember our names, right?"

"Uh..."

"Irma," said Phoebe, "Celeste," said Irma, "And Phoebe," said Celeste. Then, with identical expressions of amused mischievousness, they said in unison, "You'll have to guess which is which."

Karen sighed. "Right. Nice to meet you, again. I'm..."

"Xander, we know," they said, even as she finished with, "...Karen, when we're in public,"

A brief, uncomfortable pause. "All right, Karen," Celeste said. "Will you introduce us to your other consciousness?"

"Girls, this is..."

"Kara," Kara said, interrupting Karen's intended word choice.

"Right," Karen said, recovering smoothly. "Kara, these are Celeste, Irma, and Phoebe."

Karen's ears pricked, then. Her room mate was in a conversation across the room, but to her ears, they might as well have been speaking right next to her.

_"Wait, Nori, are you seriously telling me that her mutant power is that she has an orgasm whenever she's exposed to sunlight?"_

Wait, what?

_"I'm just telling you what it looked like," Noriko replied._

'OK,' Karen decided. 'This day officially can't get worse.'

"Don't say that," Phoebe said.

"Pretty sure I didn't," Karen replied a bit bitterly.

_ "... Wow." That was the girl with the mercury skin._

_ "I know, right?" There wasn't much inflection in Noriko's voice. The emotion that should have been there was muted, somehow._

"You know what I mean," Phoebe said. Irma and Celeste nodded in agreement. "You should never hand the universe a line like that," they finished in unison.

_"That must be..."_

_"Pretty embarrassing, but not dangerous. Why do you think they brought... Seriously, Cessily?"_

"I'm not the universe's buttmonkey," Karen said. The Cuckoos cracked a smile at that.

_"What? Don't tell me you're not jealous, too! Girl's got the Best Power Ever!"_

Noriko sighed audibly. Then another girl spoke up. _"What are we talking about?"_

"_The mutant power to orgasm whenever you're exposed to sunlight, apparently."_

_"I thought that was called Ecstacy?"_

"... OK," Karen conceded, blushing so deeply red that she seemed almost purple, "Maybe I'm the universe's buttmonkey."

The cuckoos laughed in unison. "Don't feel bad, Karen. At least you're not one of the New Warriors."

"Who?"

The Cuckoos exchanged glances. "Nevermind," said Celeste. 

* * *

><p>"Well? What do you think?"<p>

Scott Summers, known to the world as the mutant 'Cyclops,' considered the tape - minus sound - of Karen Starr eating lunch in the cafeteria. He'd only just finished experiencing the memory of her accidentally destroying her closet door about a minute previous. He looked thoughtful. "Interesting," he murmured, then looked Emma in the eye. "A blatant invasion of privacy, but interesting."

Emma rolled her eyes. "Karen Starr may have the luxury of privacy when she is no longer unintentionally a threat to the other students," she replied.

Scott considered that, then nodded reluctantly. "She doesn't have trouble with ordinary tasks unless she's consciously thinking about them?"

"That would be my assessment," Emma said. "And it gives me a few ideas for how to train her."

"Danger room?" Scott asked.

"Danger room," Emma confirmed.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Danger Room<strong>_

_**Xavier Mansion**_

Karen stood in what looked like a traditional dojo. It was generic. Every little detail stood out in its unremarkableness: the way each mirror panel was the **same** generic mirror panel, each mat the same generic mat, each board in the wooden floor exposed past the mats the same generic board. The overall effect was a place that was clearly a dojo, but not a dojo that any human being might have built.

A tall man with brown hair and blue eyes shimmered into being in front of her, clad in a clean white gi but otherwise unremarkable. Generic.

"OK, I admit your holodeck is really cool, but how is learning kung fu going to help me?"

Emma's voice filtered through the speakers from the control room, "All right, Xander. I want you to punch the hologram in front of you. Strike him hard as you can."

Karen looked uncertain and uncomfortable. "... Er, couldn't we start with breaking boards?"

"It's a hologram, Xander. It's not real. Now hit him."

Karen shrugged uncomfortably, stepped forward, and hit the man in the face.

Her fist went through his skull like it wasn't even there. The skull split open like an over-ripe melon, and a spray of bone and brain and blood went flying out what used to be the back of his skull. The body collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Very little of its skull was still connected to its body. The vast majority now lay sprayed out onto the floor.

Karen stared, utterly horrified, her hand trembling and coated with gore. "... what... what the hell was that?"

"That," Emma replied in a quiet voice, "Is what you can do to a human body if you aren't careful. A crude demonstration, perhaps, but necessary." The blood vanished. The corpse vanished. An identical man in a white gi appeared in front of Karen. "I've reset the scenario. This time I've want you to strike him in the face without killing him. Should you apply enough force to kill an unaugmented human being, your target will vanish, and then the scenario will reset. Training begins in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1..."

Karen struck the man, and he immediately vanished. She sighed.

Some days, she really hated her life.

* * *

><p>Day passed into day, and week into week, and Karen's control of her powers began to improve. Exercise followed exercise. First the 'punch, but don't kill.' Then moving into fights against enemies the X-Men had faced in the past, which must be defeated without killing them: a test of Karen's ability to control her strength in the heat of battle.<p>

Now she was learning how to meditate. With a big blue furry. Karen still wanted to giggle every time the thought occurred to her, but she'd managed to not actually act that desire after actually spending more than five minutes in Beast's presence.

"Clear your mind, Miss Starr," he told her.

Karen tried. That was the problem. 'Learn meditation,' they said. So she dug in her heels, grit her teeth, and tried to meditate. ...which all but guaranteed that she'd never actually meditate.

"Relax your body. Feel your face relaxing. Feel your shoulders. Let the tension drain from them. Feel your arms. Your elbows. Wrists. Fingers. Relax..."

She became uncomfortably aware of the cushion beneath her. Of the lotus posture she had put herself into. Her whole body tingled with energy, and she felt an uncomfortable heat behind her closed eyelids, but she remained. She struggled. And finally, she began to relax.

"Don't think. Listen. Feel your breath as you breathe in, breathe out."

Her breath felt like a hurricane in her lungs. She felt like the big bad wolf: she could huff and puff and blow the whole damn house down. Or freeze it solid. Or...

"Silence your mind. If thoughts recur, simply allow them to pass without comment, and return to silence. Breathe in. Breathe out..."

His voice was almost hypnotic now, and at last Karen settled into a state of relaxation. ...which lasted for all of a minute before her foot began to cramp. "OW, OW OW!" she yelped, and tried to stand up. Not used to the lotus posture, she tripped over her tangled legs and fell flat on her face.

Beast helped her up, and he was smiling. "You did better than I on my first attempt to meditate after the manifestation of my secondary mutation," he said.

She nodded. "Thanks. I guess, I guess I've never really been the meditating type."

"And what do you suppose is the meditating type, Miss Starr?"

She didn't have an answer for that. "I... I don't know," she said honestly.

Beast smiled, exposing his sharpened lower canines. "The beginning of wisdom is the admission of one's own ignorance," he said. He gestured towards the door. "Come, it's time to meet with Ms. Frost. I believe she intends for you to begin training with the other students soon."

As Karen followed Beast out of the room, Kara made her presence known once more. "Not bad," she said. "Better than me, anyways. I suck at meditating."

Karen didn't reply.

"Oh, come on. Not going to talk to me just because someone else is in the room?"

"Yeah, silly me," Karen said under her breath, "Being tired of talking to you in public and making everyone around me think I'm crazy."

Beast's ears pricked, and he looked her way, an eyebrow raised. "Talking to who?"

Kara laughed.

Karen sulked.

Beast, hovering somewhere between bemused and puzzled, continued on his way to Emma Frost's office.

* * *

><p><em><strong>New York<br>Earth 616  
>Today<strong>_

Divine woke up at the bottom of a swimming pool. For a moment, she thought that she'd blacked out during the fight, but a swift look around showed her that Power Girl was nowhere in sight. And neither was the lab. She kicked off the bottom of the pool, trying to go airborne. All she managed was to break the surface. She sucked in a great, heaving breath before she sank back down to the bottom. She felt... drained. The sunlight filtering through the pool was recharging her, but she had NEVER felt this drained before. Admittedly, she'd not really felt much of anything before, but still. It took a few more frantic leaps to grab another gulp of air before she had absorbed enough sunlight to fly out of the pool, and when she did, she went straight up into the afternoon sun, water streaming off her body.

It felt good to be alive. Good to...

New York. She was in New York. Max had... shown her this place, but... it looked different. More run down. Grimier, somehow. Granted, New York had never been the pride and joy of the United States the way Metropolis had, but still...

It looked off.

No matter. She landed on the roof of a skyscraper which bore the words, 'Daily Bugle.' There, basking in the light of the yellow sun, Divine stretched out her hands, as if embracing the sky.

Her first priority had to be to reestablish contact with Max.

He would know what to do.

_**End Chapter 05**_


	6. Crusade, Part I

"Look around you," he said, his voice filled with the perfect confidence of one who knows he does God's will. The crowd filled the auditorium, many bearing signs proclaiming their opposition to the devil's children. 'No mutants,' one proclaimed, 'Their extinction is the will of God!' read another. "And know that this is but a handful of God's children, those who have heard the call, and will do his will upon the Earth!"

The crowd roared. The preacher in his black suit had never felt so powerful. His deep, sonorous voice rolled out across the crowd, and united in zeal, they cried out in agreement, "Praise Jesus! Hallelujah!"

"The Lord watched as the seeds of Satan gained strength and claimed our world," the preacher said. "He patiently waited for his children to rise up and fight the forces of evil... but we did **nothing**. And Eden fell."

"Have mercy, oh Lord!" a woman cried out.

A man nearby followed a moment later with, "Lord God, forgive us our inaction!"

"Now God has given us one last chance to make right what we've allowed to go so very wrong. Now you must decide what you will do. Do you stand with God and with those children of God you see around you to end Satan's reign, or do you turn your back on the Lord once again? For there can be do doubt that the Day of Judgment is at hand!"

Power. It filled the room. Filled the preacher. The holy spirit power was in him now, and in the crowd. They cried out for their salvation, and he would give it to them. If God was on their side, who could stand against them? Mutants? How laughable.

He smiled as only one whose conscience is utterly clean can smile. God had spoken, and William Stryker would be the instrument of his vengeance.

* * *

><p>A New World in my View<br>by P.H. Wise  
>A New X-Men Crossover Fanfic<p>

Chapter 06: Crusade, Part I

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby. Some dialogue from this chapter comes from 'New X-Men' #23 and #25. Marvel owns that, too.

* * *

><p>"Um, hi. I'm Karen." It was funny how easily that lie came to her now. She didn't even hesitate anymore. Emma Frost had called her in to introduce her to the new squad of X-Men that she was going to be training with in the immediate future, and it was awkward. Most of the girls in the squad were the ones who had been gossiping about her in the cafeteria a few weeks back. ...and that had been when people started singing, 'Sunshine on her shoulders gives her happies,' to the tune of the John Denver song. The boys she had seen around, but had never actually been introduced to.<p>

"What's your code name?" Noriko asked.

"What's your power?" one of the boys asked almost at the same time.

Several of the girls turned red with embarrassment.

"I..." Karen looked to Kara, who stood at her side albeit invisible to the rest of the team, then to Emma.

"Power Girl," Kara said, as if it were obvious.

"Ms. Starr has the ability to absorb solar radiation and to use it to supercharge her physical capabilities," Emma said. "The potential applications of this power are quite extensive, but for practical purposes, she is extremely strong, tough, and fast, can fly, possesses a healing factor, and can release concentrated blasts of heat." Her gaze flickered to Kara for a split second before moving back to the new X-Men. "She will be operating with the code name, 'Power Girl.'"

The same girls who had blushed stared wide-eyed.

"... Oh," said Noriko.

Emma didn't quite smirk. "I suppose you expecting something else, Ms. Ashida?"

Noriko blushed deeply. "... No, Ms. Frost."

"Good. Now why don't you introduce yourselves?"

"I'm Josh," said a boy with golden skin. "Code name: Elixir."

"Laura," said an intense looking girl with long, dark hair. The others waited for her to give her code name. She didn't give one.

"She's X-23," Josh said.

Laura didn't deny it.

"Name's Santo," said the boy made of rock. "But my code name is Rockslide."

"Julian," said another boy. "Call me Hellion, though, or I'll kick your ass." That last he delivered with a grin and a wink.

"Cessily," said the girl with mercury skin. "Code name: Mercury."

The girl in the full length hijab spoke last. "My name is Sooraya," she said, not projecting her voice. "If it pleases you, you may call me Dust."

"Um," Karen began awkwardly. What does one say in a situation like this? "Nice to meet you all?"

Some rolled their eyes. Some smiled. Emma's expression changed not at all. It was the strangest thing, though. There, in that room, just for a moment, Karen felt... accepted.

She smiled.

"You have an hour," Emma said, "And then I expect you all to meet me in the Danger Room. Karen, stay a moment."

The others filed out, some looking back at her, some not.

Karen looked to Emma.

"I've been discussing your training with Kara," Emma said. Karen's blinked in surprise, but Emma didn't stop. "While we each agree that your control has vastly improved, we do have some concerns. Some of the children you will be training with are no more durable than an ordinary human. Can I trust you not to cause them harm?"

The weight of Emma's statement took a few seconds to sink in, and then Karen felt like she'd been kicked in the chest. She met Emma's gaze. "... I won't hurt them," she said.

Emma held her gaze for a long moment, and when Karen didnt' look away, Emma nodded. "I believe you." A faint glimmer of a smile. "Which brings me to the other matter Kara and I have been discussing..."

She produced a small remote control and pressed a button. A closet door slid open, revealing a mannequin with Karen's proportions dressed in a skin tight white and blue jumpsuit. "It occurred to me that if you are to be training with the team, you are in need of a uniform. I had this altered for you: its previous owner no longer needs it."

Karen ruthlessly quashed her initial reaction: one of injured masculinity and not wanting to be seen in something like that. Emma was making a gesture, and once she got past that initial knee-jerk response, she smiled a genuine smile. "Thank you, Miss Frost," she said, and meant it.

"Go. I'll see you in the Danger Room in one hour, Power Girl."

Karen took the uniform and left, and Kara followed on her heels.

* * *

><p>William Stryker knelt in prayer. He was alone, with naught but him and the altar and the presence of the Lord. "I thank thee, oh God, for the gifts thou hast given me," he said, speaking as if to an audience - and so he was; the man had never learned to pray but that it were a performance; his was a style of prayer that played at speaking to an audience of One, but the one he performed for was himself. "For thy help and thy comfort, I give thee thanks. For the purifiers who do thy will, I give thee thanks. Praise be to God."<p>

He had received a new vision: in order to secure the bounties of paradise for his people, another needed to die. God had told him so, and William Stryker was not one to question the will of God. Not when it was spoken so clearly. The question of murder never entered into it, not now, and not when he had ordered his purifiers to bomb the bus carrying those children away from the Xavier estate: he possessed the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The laws of man could never stand before the laws of God; God would judge, and when that time came, William knew that he would be found as one washed in the blood of the lamb.

"Oh Lord God, thee alone we acknowledge as God and King, thee we invoke as our helper. From thee we have obtained our victories, thorugh thee, conquered our enemies. Thee we thank for past favors, from thee we hope for future favors. Lord God, I beseech thee, and pray that thou long preserve to us, unharmed and victorious, our God-loving sons. Amen."

He rose to his feet.

Laurie Collins, child of the devil, must die if the Lord's children are to flourish. She looked like any other pretty girl, but Stryker wasn't fooled. He knew that his conflict was not against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities of the air.

Laurie Collins would be dead by sundown. God's will be done.

* * *

><p>The training session wasn't going well.<p>

"This is a simple exercise," Emma had said. "All you have to do is knock Colossus down."

Easier said than done. Particularly when Colossus was a 7'5" tall, well, colossus, made entirely out of some form of bizarre, flexible, organic steel, and who weighed about as much as Karen did. Add on top of that a stupid level of competence in hand to hand combat, and you've got a problem for even an entire team of trainees.

"Clumsy," Colossus said, evading Rockslide's attack and slamming him into the floor hard enough to knock him senseless. Elixir rushed up behind him and struck him on the back of the head with part of a steel girder. Colossus barely noticed. "There are eight of you," he said, picking up Elixir and casting him aside. "Work as one."

Surge made her attack next, and all it amounted to was Mercury and X-23 each getting a blast of her own lightning to the face as Colossus redirected her hands in mid discharge. He released Nori and stepped back.

"You're running out of team mates," Colossus said.

"WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?"

"You are the team's leader, Surge. This is your burden. If you don't find a way to win, your friends will die."

Karen charged. Colossus saw her coming, but wasn't quite able to evade her blow. He took it to the chest, but while he didn't have time to evade, he did have time to set himself. His feet lost traction on the floor, but he did not fall: he slid across the floor and impacted the far wall.

Thinking she had an opening, Karen zoomed in after him, aiming to grab him by the leg and throw him while he was recovering from the impact.

...but apparently, he hadn't needed to recover. He was ready for her, and when she flew down to deliver her coup de grace, he seized her by the shoulders and pulled her down sharply even as he brought his knee up to meet her her abdomen directly on top of her thoracic diaphragm.

It HURT, and it blasted the air out of her lungs. Down she went, struggling to breathe.

A minute later, it was over.

"This exercise is over," Emma said. "And you are all dead."

Joy.

And then Elixir pulled his stunt, hit Colossus with a steel girder after he'd shifted back to human form, and got kicked off the team.

Karen sighed, picking absently at her uniform. Not long after, she began the long walk from the danger room back upstairs. She passed Celeste on the way, and though she smiled and said hello, the girl seemed to stiffen at the sight of her, and left without saying a word.

She frowned, not entirely sure what that had been about. After a few moments worry that she might have done something to offend Celeste, she dismissed it from her mind, deciding, 'I may be a girl now, but I still don't understand women.'

* * *

><p>Dawn broke the following morning, filling the sky with light and glory, but in the room shared by Surge and the newly dubbed Power Girl, no sign of it could be seen. Their alarms went off at the same time. 7:30 AM. This time, Karen didn't keep sleeping. This time, she clambered out of bed and staggered into the bathroom.<p>

"Xander," Kara called, "Don't forget to..."

Karen grimaced. "Yeah, yeah, I know."

"Know what?" Nori asked, only just stirring in her bed, rubbing her eyes sleepily.

Karen ignored her. After the gossiping Nori had done, she wasn't prepared to forgive her just yet. Especially with some people STILL singing 'that song.' She'd asked for and had been given shaving supplies, and today, in the bath, she was going to give it a shot. ...she was trying not to think about it too much.

She stepped in and settled down, lathered up her right leg, set the razor against her skin, and started to pull it upwards. There was a sound like tearing metal. A moment later, bits of razor-blade tumbled into the bathwater.

Karen stared. "... Uh... Kara?"

Kara sighed. "I was kind of hoping you hadn't powered up enough for that to be a problem."

"Well, obviously, it's a problem!"

There came a knock on the door, followed by Nori's voice. _"Karen? You OK in there?"_

"I'M FINE!" she yelled back. "EVERYTHING'S FINE!"

"OK," Kara said, "There's another way to do it, but you're not going to like it."

"I'm not going to like it more than I'm not going to like shaving your legs in the first place? Because I gotta say, my dislike of that activity is already making want to start with the destructo-boy here!"

"Girl," Kara replied.

"Whatever. Still waiting."

"Right. So it's like this: you have to use your heat vision."

"WHAT?"

_ "Karen?"_

"What?"

There was a pause, and then Noriko asked, _"... is there someone in there with you?"_

"NO!"

Another pause. _"I'm getting a teacher."_

Karen grimaced. "Damnit. Fine! You want me to use my heat vision, I'll use my heat vision!" And with that, she let loose with a huge blast of heat over her entire lower body, and while its area of effect did include her legs, it also included a more... sensitive area.

Karen's ensuing scream of pain nearly shook the building.

* * *

><p>"Are you sure you don't want to go to the infirmary?" Noriko asked. They were walking down the hallway behind a mortified looking Kitty Pryde, who had come running at the sound of screams only to discover... the situation was what it was.<p>

Karen walked stiffly. Very stiffly. Very, very stiffly. Some areas had been hit harder than others. ...and she was walking with first degree burns. "I'm. Fine." she said through gritted teeth. As it turned out, she was more than capable of hurting herself with her own powers if she wasn't careful.

"That has to be beyond painful. Come on, Karen. They'll probably have an ointment or something..."

Kitty was trying not to cringe at the thought.

Karen glared. "... Stop. Talking. Please."

The physical damage, thankfully, was only temporary. Five minutes exposing herself to sunlight and the pain began to recede. Another minute and it was gone, and the only damage remaining was the damage to her pride.

Unfortunate shaving incidents aside, today was something special for the students at the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. Today was field trip day.

Before the arrival of the Sentinels and the establishment of the mutant refugee camp on the premises, they'd been allowed to come and go as they pleased. Since then, well, Karen didn't know all the details, but she'd heard that the O*N*E people wanted to have them all tagged before any of them would be let out. Supposedly, the refugees actually had the tags implanted, but the X-Men were not willing to allow the same for their students. Each group would have an adult chaperone. No one would be allowed to go off on their own. The chaperone would be carrying a comm-link which the O*N*E people could track the location of, and would allow them to call for help if they needed it.

Karen's group consisted of herself, a blonde girl she hadn't met yet named Laurie Collins, Josh - the guy who'd gotten himself kicked off the training squad, Sooraya, Noriko, and a black kid Karen hadn't met named David Alleyne. They'd pulled Piotr Rasputin - Colossus - as their chaperone.

By the time they'd been allowed onto the bus, Karen was feeling more uncomfortable than not. Perhaps being swathed from head to toe in form-concealing clothing that left nothing exposed to sunlight had something to do with it - Emma hadn't been particularly happy when she'd learned that Karen had intentionally let herself be exposed to sunlight earlier that day, even if it was to heal painful blisters, and was taking no chances on the field trip. A thin, rust-coloured turtleneck sweater over a long sleeved shirt. Faded blue jeans. Boots. A toboggan hat that covered her ears. Emma had even made her wear long underwear under it all, though no observer would be able to tell. For the first time since she'd first been exposed to sunlight in this new world, Karen felt uncomfortably warm.

So here she was, sitting in the back of a school bus across from the other girl prone to wearing ultra-concealing clothing - Sooraya, in her abaya, with a niqab covering her face. Completely different styles of dress. Comparable amounts of skin left showing.

"Hey," Karen said, sounding miserable.

"... Hey," Sooraya replied a bit uncertainly.

The bus began to move, and Karen looked down as her ever more sensitive hearing picked up shouting from across the compound.

"This is bullshit!" A man with an eye-patch yelled. "You tag us like fucking DOGS if we want to see the outside, and those damned brats at the Xavier school get to saunter on out on a field trip without a problem?"

"We won't stand for this!" shouted a mutant who resembled nothing so much as a skeleton shrouded in flames.

Karen looked up just in time to meet the gaze of an angry mutant who resembled nothing so much as a humanoid elephant, flipping the bird to the entire bus. "FUCK YOU, X-BRATS!" he shouted, and this time Karen was not the only one who heard: most of those on the bus turned to look. He was not alone. A dozen mutants had gathered, and were now being held back by a line of soldiers in battle armor carrying rifles.

The bus rumbled on.

* * *

><p>"So," Karen said. She and Sooraya were following the rest of the group through the local shopping mall. Neither was particularly comfortable with the situation, albeit for different reasons. People were staring. They knew that these were students from Xavier's. A few made uncomplimentary comments under their breath.<p>

Karen heard them all.

"So," Sooraya said.

"You come here much?"

Sooraya shook her head.

An uncomfortable silence ensued.

"So," Karen tried again, "Wearing a burqa, what's the what?"

Sooraya gave Karen an irritated look. "It is not a burqa. It is an abaya. I wear it with the niqab as a sign of my submission to Allah."

"... Ah," Karen said.

A second uncomfortable silence ensued.

Karen gave up soon after, leaving Sooraya to bring up the tail of the group by herself. She had no idea how to relate to the other girl, and she'd never been religious herself. Not when she was Xander, certainly not now. Which wasn't to say she was necessarily an atheist, just that... well, religion wasn't a part of her life at all. Never had been. Even when he started helping Buffy, they'd used crosses and holy water, sure, but those were tools and weapons, not, well... She shook her head.

The black kid spoke up, then. "You're Karen, right? I don't think we've met."

Karen looked his way. Tall. Glasses. Built like a linebacker. Smile on his face. "Hey, yeah, I guess we haven't. You're..." she trailed off. She drew a blank on his name. She'd been told it once before, but it just wasn't coming to her.

"David," he said.

"Hey," Karen said, her voice growing cheerful, "Nice to meet you. Guess I'll ask what everyone always asks: what's your power?"

David's face fell, and yet another awkward silence descended, this time shared by the whole group as they stared at Karen and David for a moment.

David forced a smile. "Guess you hadn't heard. I lost my power on M-Day."

Karen felt a growing sense of embarrassment which quickly moved on into mortification. "For I am Karen, queen of the cretins. May all lesser cretins bow before me." That, at least, drew a laugh from David, which made Karen feel better about reusing a joke. "OK, we're young and we're in a mall, I say we go dump huge amounts of disposable income into items of dubious utility!"

"Sounds like a plan," Laurie said with forced cheer. But it got them moving, and soon they were indulging in that grand ritual of the American experience which united young and old, from sea to shining sea: consumption. It wasn't much, and maybe it wasn't even healthy, but it took their minds off their troubles and let them laugh and pretend to be normal teenagers for a few hours, and maybe that enough.

Two hours later, Colossus informed them via their communicators that it was time to go. They were all to meet up at the food court, and from there they would proceed back to the bus to return to Xavier's. It was now late afternoon, and the shadows outside were lengthening.

Karen came walking back towards the food court with Laurie and Josh. Each of them had an orange smoothie in hand, and Josh and Laurie were laughing. "You can't be serious," Josh said.

"Why would I lie? Inviso-girl locks us in the basement with the gas on, and then tries to take her revenge on Cordelia..." Karen paused, "You know, it's funnier to talk about it than it was to live through it."

Laurie shook her head incredulously. "I thought MY old school was bad," she murmured.

"Weren't you home schooled?" Josh asked.

Laurie gave Josh an annoyed look. "For your information, I went to public school. Things sucked for me beyond the telling of it before my powers woke up." A pause. "And they they still sucked, but in a different way."

Karen nodded. "Giles used to say that we were 'dreadfully mistaken if we thought the only purpose of high school was to instill a capacity for suffering,' but that's still what my money's on."

"Hey," Josh said, "Looks like we're the first ones here." He looked around, and took a sip of his smoothie. "Oh wait, there's Mr. Rasputin." He waved to Colossus, who nodded back as he made his way towards the three students.

"I trust you have enjoyed yourselves?" Colossus asked.

"Hey, I'm always up for some mall prowling," Karen said. A pause. "That sounded creepier than I meant it."

None of the three knew that at that moment, from the second story window of the building across the street from the mall and with a clear line of fire to the food court, Matthew Risman - one of Stryker's Purifiers - had Laurie in his sights, his high powered sniper rifle ready to fire. His finger eased onto the trigger as he settled the cross-hairs onto her heart.

He exhaled as he gently squeezed the trigger.

The bullet flew true, its sound dampened by the suppressor mounted to the rifle's barrel.

Karen saw the muzzle flash, and immediately her Kryptonian brain went into overdrive, processing information at speeds an order of magnitude higher than it had been even an instant before. She saw the bullet. Saw its trajectory intersecting Laurie's heart. Saw that nobody else could do a damn thing. Saw that even with her speed, while she might have time to get in the way, she wouldn't have time to reach out, grab Laurie, and pull her out of the way without ripping the girl's arm off in the process - an injury that would likely prove just as lethal as any bullet. Her heart began to race, her palms became slick with sweat.

Moving with super-speed, she stepped in front of the path of the bullet.

Time seemed to resume its normal flow. Karen's chest erupted in a blaze of agony as a depleted uranium slug impacted against her collarbone.

Blood spurted onto the floor.

She was falling. Someone was screaming. She couldn't tell if it was her.

"MR. RASPUTIN!" someone screamed.

Distantly, she heard a second shot, and then a third.

The world faded, and all she knew was darkness, and a vast, terrible silence.

**End Chapter 06**


	7. Crusade, Part II

Pain.  
>Darkness.<br>Silence.

"The blackest night... falls from the skies..."  
>"What a difference a day makes..."<br>"The darkness grows... as all light dies..."

Agony.  
>Darkness.<br>Loss.

"Listen. What do you hear?"  
>"... Everything."<br>"Then you understand."  
>"Kal-L, I..."<p>

A point of night.  
>A black ring.<br>A red cape.  
>A white light.<p>

"... in brightest day... in blackest night..."  
>"Kara, I..."<br>"... no evil shall escape my sight..."  
>"Save it. You are NOT my father!"<p>

A man in a blue mask with a bullet hole through his head.  
>The Blue Beetle didn't commit suicide. He was murdered.<br>I remember everything.  
>I remember...<p>

Kara Zor-L opened her eyes.

* * *

><p>A New World in my View<br>by P.H. Wise  
>An X-Men Crossover Fanfic<p>

Chapter 07: Crusade, Part II

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby. This chapter contains some dialogue from New X-Men #27. Marvel owns that, too. 

* * *

><p>"... Karen? Karen!"<p>

The world came rushing back with all the force of a freight train. Every perception bouncing through her head: she could see everything. Infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, radio waves, x-rays, gamma rays. She could hear... everything. … but why did it hurt so much?

She remembered. Xander. He'd stepped in front of the gunshot.

"Karen, how many fingers am I holding up?"

She looked at the blonde girl and the fingers she was holding up. "... Six," she murmured, and the sound of her own voice, and the feeling of it buzzing in her chest against her broken collarbone send fresh waves of agony surging through her body.

"Why isn't it working?"

"Where's Xander?" she asked confusedly.

"Xander?" Josh asked. "Who's Xander?"

She was in the food court. Xander had brought them here. Had been talking with his friends. She'd been... the reality that she was in control of her own body after a month of total helplessness and almost a second month of being relegated to a phantom existence hit her suddenly, and the sheer intensity of it nearly overwhelmed her. "I'm back," she whispered. "I'm back..."

"Are you sure you healed her?"

Joshua Foley shook his head. "I tried. I think... I've managed to stop the bleeding, but it's weird. She's..." he met Laurie's gaze. "I don't think she's human."

She was in shock. Oh, Rao help her, she was in shock. "... she's a star-woman," she murmured, suppressing a giggle, even though every word was agony, "...waiting in the sky, she'd like to come and meet us, but she thinks she'd blow our minds..."

"Don't try to talk, idiot," Laurie snapped. She looked up at Josh. "Human or not, she saved my life. But I think there's something wrong with her. We need to get her to Miss Frost."

Josh shook his head. "Colossus told us to stay behind cover until he returned."

"JOSH! LAURIE!" Josh looked up. Surge and the others came rushing up.

"What happened?"

Kara shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. The movement HURT, but she embraced that pain. Used it to force back her rising delirium. "... Josh..." she moaned.

"They got Karen? Is she alive?"

The face of the sniper burned in her brain. The gun he carried. Every detail. She had to do something. Bombing a school bus full of children. Sending snipers to assassinate Laurie. A climate of fear. It couldn't go on. Not when SHE could do something to stop it. So she lied."Josh, I'm dying," she said.

His eyes bugged out. "No... no, Karen, I'll... I'll try harder. I can heal you. I stopped the bleeding!"

"You can save me... but you have to... put me out in direct sunlight."

They knew that Miss Frost didn't want Karen exposed to too much sunlight too quickly. But if she was right... All eyes went to Noriko. She was the leader. She made the call.

"Do it," Nori said.

The sound of approaching Sentinels was loud to the others, almost deafening to Kara.

She hissed in pain as Rockslide lifted her. Carried her to the sunlit portion of the room. Laid her body down almost reverently.

Power began to flood into her cells. The bio-cellular matrix, her birthright as a Kryptonian, drawing in all the power that it could. She took off her hat, stripped out of her turtleneck. Every move was agony. Kara Zor-L rose to her feet, and then floated up into the air.

"...Karen?" Noriko asked, eyes wide.

"I'm sorry," she told the others. "I have to stop this. This ends now."

"Karen, WAIT!"

Kara rocketed into the afternoon sky. Up. Up. Higher. Higher. It grew difficult to breathe: she hadn't yet absorbed enough to sustain her life functions in the absence of other sustenance. She blazed through the sky, accelerating as she went, the wind whipping through her hair, friction alone tearing the clothing from her body. Naked, she ascended, zooming out of the atmosphere, picking up speed as she went, absorbing more and more solar radiation as she went.

She left the protective envelope of the Earth. Consciousness was fading. Her lungs burned, but held their rapidly diminishing supply of oxygen against the vacuum. She went on, exposed herself directly to the full force of the solar wind. Her pain vanished. The blackness at the edges of her vision receeded. The Earth hung below her like a jewel suspended in the void, and for the first time since her arrival, Kara Zor-L felt whole. She was not at full power. Not yet. But this was enough for her purposes.

She shot back down towards the Earth, the light of her reentry blazing a trail in the skies from San Francisco to New York city.

* * *

><p>Early warning systems began to sound their alarms across the United States. Something was entering the atmosphere.<p>

At NORAD, a technician stared incredulously at the sensor readings he was getting. "Sir?"

"What is it, Specialist?"

"Inbound unidentified flying object, sir. Just hit atmo above California."

The captain frowned. "Show me."

The technician did.

"Incoming at mach..." The captain's eyes widened. "... That's impossible."

S.H.I.E.L.D. went on high alert as the projected flight path of the unknown contact was traced: it was headed for New York. Resources were reallocated, but it would be at least an hour before a heli-carrier could be on site.

An alert went out to the New Avenger, and Earth's mightiest heroes assembled at Stark Tower: Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, and Marvel Girl were on call. Theirs would be a response time of minutes and not hours.

The X-Men, too, had their early warning system, installed long ago after repeated dealings with extra-terrestrial beings, and they leaped into action as they learned of the unknown object leaving a plume of plasma two miles long in its wake blazing across the United States. When it began to decelerate, their computers quickly calculated a likely destination: Westchester County.

And high above the Earth, basking in the sunlight at the edge of the atmosphere, Divine looked upon the sign and knew it it for what it was.

* * *

><p>Emma was very, very calm as she asked, as calmly as she could, "What happened?"<p>

Valerie Cooper shook her head, "We're still gathering data, Ms. Frost. Our initial report indicates that a sniper positioned in a third story apartment on the building across the street from the shopping mall a group of your students had chosen as their site of recreation opened fire, injuring, or possibly killing one of them in the process."

"We were assured of their safety, Ms. Cooper," Emma said, very, very calmly. "Can you perhaps explain why the incompetence of your security measures has allowed the 'injury or possible death' of yet another student?"

"... The shooter didn't show up on any of our scanners..."

"You expect us to put our lives into your hands," Emma began, her calm unravelling slightly, "And when we do, you fail on every conceivable level, and you wonder why we are less than inclined to cooperate? You wonder why we see you as more of a hindrance than a help?"

Val didn't have a good reply for that, and she was spared further anger when a call came through to Emma's office. Emma picked up her phone. "This had better be good," she said.

#Emma,# Scott said over the line, #Colossus just reported in. No casualties, but Karen is missing. Josh and Laurie claim she saved Laurie's life, and then flew away. I...#

The early warning alarms began to sound. They had an inbound contact from outside the atmosphere, and it was coming. Here.

It was days like this made Emma glad she never gave up drinking. 

* * *

><p>Protesters had been gathering outside of Xavier's since the first confused days after M-Day. At first, it had only been a trickle of crazies. Two days back, that trickle had become a flood. All the nation seemed to have turned out to show their anger at the presence of this last bastion of mutant-kind upon the earth. Hundreds of thousands of fearful, angry human beings gathered in common purpose beneath the guidance of one Reverend William Stryker, and he was greatly pleased. But more importantly, the Lord was pleased. He had sent out the call, and his people had answered magnificently! The police had never seen anything like it, and it was all they could do to keep the throng of the faithful from storming the gates of that God-forsaken school.<p>

The tool the Lord had granted to him had proven a bounty beyond knowing.

He had been a crusader, once. One of god's chosen in the war against Satan and his demons, and their blasphemous children known as mutant-kind. But he had strayed. She had tempted him - it always seemed to be women who did the tempting - and he, like Adam, had fallen. Had been convinced that God was wrong. Had fallen from grace.

The Lord had chastised him for his lack of faith, for his moment of weakness. Surely the agonies of Saint Peter in the moment when the cock crowed that third and final time could not have been more terrible. He, the man who had only ever wanted to serve his God and his country, had forsaken them both for the sweet lies of the whore of Babylon. Oh, but his revenge upon Kitty Pryde would come, and when it did, it would be swift and terrible. He would give her no chance to tempt him with her pretty lies this time. But all of that was in the past. He was a new man, now: forgiven. God had forgiven him, and had taken his sin as far away as the East was from the West. After a long and difficult road to redemption, the Lord had granted him a second chance, and a tool with which to strike down the devil-spawned abominations once and for all, and what a tool it was!

Nimrod.

A Sentinel from a glorious future where humanity had won its war against Satan's spawn. Where every trace of the mutant filth had been tracked down and destroyed. It had taught him things. Terrible, wonderful things. For such was his calling as a man of God: what he bound on Earth, God would bind in heaven; what he loosed, God would loose.

But it was time. The stage was set. His people were waiting. The cameras were waiting. "Oh Lord," he prayed. "Be with your humble servant this night. Guide my steps, and grant me the strength to do your will. Amen."

* * *

><p>"... Miss Frost, you have to listen!"<p>

Emma raised an eyebrow. The students had been returned more or less safely, and no sooner had Noriko returned to her room than she came rushing back to her office to speak with her.

"There was a blur, and then Power Girl's costume was gone. I think..." Noriko looked up. "I think she's going to do something foolish."

The pieces began to fall into place. Karen had been injured. Emma couldn't find her telepathically. … was it because she was searching for the wrong mind? Could it be Kara who was in control? "Then we'd better find her before she does," she said.

* * *

><p>He walked out onto the stage. A great amphitheater had been provided for his use, and every seat had been filled. Cameras flashed. The roar of the crowd was deafening. He raised his hand towards the sky as if to redirect their praise to the one to whom it was truly due: he was but the servant; the glory belonged to the Lord. He knew that his words were being carried all around the world by the television cameras, but also to his Purifiers, and to the hundreds of thousands who protested outside of the Xavier mansion as well. "My children," he began, "Let us pray the way our Lord taught us: Our Father," and the whole crowd joined in, their voices mingling with his own until it seemed there was no distinction between them, "Who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name..." The prayer went on, every heart lifted in submission, every knee bent, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, and ever, and ever! Amen!" By the time the prayer concluded, the crowd had reached a fever pitch, none of them, him least of all, seeing the tiniest contradiction between that prayer and the hatred they poured so freely upon the least of these, my brethren.<p>

"My children, I speak to you tonight of the Anti-Christ: the man who will be empowered by Satan to lead the forces of darkness against the children of God. Have you not heard? He will lead the world into the terrors of the Apocalypse. Although he will be against the faithful Christians, and will mock God's word, the world will view him as a man of peace. He will use deception and lies to spin his web of deceit and to conceal his true motives, promoting a vision of universal brotherhood between man and mutant, when his true goal is conquest, and to ride forth to conquer us all! Can anyone doubt that this man is Charles Xavier?"

The crowd roared its approval. Power. He felt it in his veins. Every word carrying these people with him, driving them onwards to accomplish God's calling.

"The signs are beyond number! But God in his mercy has performed a great miracle! The devil-spawn have been driven from our presence like the pestilence that they are, and now their last remnant lingers in that," his voice took on a mocking tone, "Institute for Higher Learning." He paused for effect. "But the time has come! Today, we take back the paradise that was lost by our inaction! Today, by your actions, we strike a blow for the Lord!"

The crowd roared its approval, and he basked in it. "AMEN!" he shouted, as if he were an observer and not the preacher. "By the power of the holy spirit, we shall be more than conquerors, my children! We shall be sons and daughters of the most high God!"

And then a streak of white and blue and gold came out of the sky, landing with a thunderclap, and with such force that it shook the outdoor theater and left a crater six feet across in the concrete stage.

Power Girl had arrived.

* * *

><p>Xander's consciousness was stronger now. Not strong enough to push her out of the driver's seat, but strong enough that Power Girl knew that her time was short. Tracking Matthew Rissman might have proven been looking for a needle in a haystack for the police, but for a Kryptonian with super-speed, x-ray vision, a starting point, a bird's eye view, and a very good reason to follow him back to his boss, it had proven a matter of patience and determination. She'd found him eight minutes after the shooting. He'd switched vehicles at least once already, and he did so twice more before he finally returned to his safe house. He hadn't been cooperative, but the journal that he kept hidden behind a secret panel - easily discoverable when you can see through walls - had been... illuminating. What she'd found there had led her here. She wasn't here to do what her first impulse had been: she'd never really been a plan kind of girl. She was all about action and smashing things, but that wasn't going to work here. It might even make things worse.<p>

But this was about more than just what had happened to Xander earlier today. This was about right and wrong. This was about... how could she call herself a hero if she wasn't willing to confront William Stryker for what he had done? No plan. No equipment. No backup. She had a brief 'What the hell am I doing?' moment.

_'KARA, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?'_ a voice all but screamed in her head.

_'Oh. Hi Emma.'_

_'You had better not be... no. Absolutely not. Going after Stryker is idiotic. Assaulting him at a public event will only hurt our cause.'_

_ 'Who said anything about assaulting?'_

'_Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just turn off your brain and puppet you back to the school myself? What the hell do you think you're doing?'_

_'The right thing.' _

'_No. I'm not going to let you do thi...' _Something cut off Emma's telepathic signal in mid-thought.

She arrived.

Screams filled the amphitheater. Terror. Rage. The crowd was shaken by her arrival. The Reverend Stryker held forth his hand and called out, "Be not afraid, my people! The Lord is with us! She is a servant of the Devil, come to test our faith! Stand strong in the hour of trial!"

Power Girl tossed the broken remains of Matthew Risman's sniper rifle onto the stage. "Stryker!" she yelled, modulating her power to amplify her voice as if she, too, were speaking through the sound system. "This insanity ends now!"

Silence, and then the crowd began to rumble like a hundred thousand angry bees. Not a single security guard made a move towards her - they weren't being paid enough to confront a superhuman. William Stryker's voice pierced the din, and as he spoke, his people fell silent. "It is no insanity to follow the will of God!" he proclaimed. "You come against us with your demon fueled powers, but we come against you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!"

Power Girl walked forward, and the news cameras followed her as she went. "Your assassin has failed, Stryker. Your attempt to murder a teenage girl has failed."

"We will not hear your slander here, mutant," Stryker replied. "But I guess you already knew that. Why have you come?"

"To give you a chance," Power Girl replied. "To stop this. To give up this hate that has poisoned you: this hate that you spread to everyone you touch." She looked out at the crowd, "I've seen what human beings can do. The good and the bad. Your aggression, your blind submission to leaders, your hostility to outsiders, your compassion for others, love for your children, your great, soaring, passionate intelligence. You can be a great people; I know that you wish to be. Turn away from this madness."

"Or what?"

"Or I'll stop you."

Stryker seemed momentarily taken aback, but he recovered quickly. He laughed. "Just like that, you'll stop me? You think you can stand against the will of God, girl? Who do you think you are?"

She continued her slow walk towards him. "I'm the last daughter of Krypton. I've seen the death of worlds, survived the death of universes. I stood against the Blackest Night, I've faced monsters, gods, and demons. I'm Power Girl, and I am not afraid of you, William Stryker."

His pride was pricked. Fury built within him. How DARE this little girl challenge him here, in front of his own! He slipped on the gauntlet that he kept behind his podium. "My children," he cried, "It's time to win the war between Heaven and Hell!" He raised up the gauntlet of Nimrod.

"Stop this, Stryker. This is your last chance."

"I'm afraid I can't do that," he replied. "I answer to a higher power." There was a deep, bass rumble, and a pulse of blinding light, and then...

Pandemonium. That suited Kara just fine.

"Purifiers!" Stryker called, "The time is now!" And then he leveled the gauntlet at Power Girl and let loose with a terrific blast of electromagnetically sheathed plasma. She didn't try to dodge: she knew that if she were to do so, hundreds of normal humans behind her would die. She clenched her eyes shut and covered them with her hands. The plasma blast detonated on impact, obscuring her body in fire.

When the flames died down, her exposed flesh looked like she had stayed out in the sun for far too long, but she was otherwise fine.

And pissed.

People were screaming, running in all directions, praying for their god to save them.

"You had to have known. If I had dodged, how many people would you have killed just now, Reverend?"

"MY FLOCK IS PREPARED TO LAY DOWN THEIR LIVES IN SERVICE TO THE LORD!" 'Analysis complete,' a mechanical voice chimed from Stryker's gauntlet. 'Necessary adaptations made. Prepare to fire.' He raised his gauntleted arm once more, preparing something worse. Something lethal. That deep, awful rumble nearly split the air as power gathered in his gauntlet.

"I wouldn't be so sure," she replied. Then, her voice still amplified to reach every person in the amphitheater, she called out, "Ladies and gentlemen, I recommend you walk calmly to the nearest exit."

The rumble grew louder. The power buildup reached its peak. He drew back his hand, clutching a ball of pure destruction between his gauntleted fingers.

She took his arm off at the shoulder with a blast of her heat vision. The wound was instantly cauterized, and arm and gauntlet both hit the concrete stage with a thunk. The ball of death flickered and went out.

She took his arm off at the shoulder with a blast of her heat vision. The wound was instantly cauterized, and arm and gauntlet both hit the concrete stage with a thunk.

Stryker stared at the blackened stump that seconds ago had been a functioning part of his body, and then directed every ounce of his hatred at Power Girl. "... You... you cannot defeat me so easily!" he spat, "I have the holy spirit power, girl! I will purge this world of your filth!"

Power Girl smiled a bit viciously. "Yeah? You and what arm-y?" And then she blanched, horrified by what she'd just said. "... Oh God. I need to spend less time with Xander." And nobody but her understood why that last bit was funny. Damn.

Stryker laughed. He couldn't help it. He laughed. "What arm-y? What army? This one! Purifiers!"

Dozens of robed men rose up from their hiding places, each of them carrying weaponry tailor made to kill super-humans.

They opened fire.

* * *

><p>"Something isn't right," the purifier said.<p>

"I know. Paul and Joseph should have returned by now," his fellow replied.

They stood guard in a hidden chamber inside of Reverend Stryker's church. A damaged, angular, pink robot hung from a cross in the center of the room, surrounded on all sides by banks of computers.

The first shook his head. "No, I'm talking about the device. After that last power spike, everything changed... the levels are off the charts."

On the ground, a young mutant by the name of Joshua Guthrie was bleeding to death. "... I'm sorry," he moaned, "So... sorry..."

The first purifier grimaced. "What's taking them so long? They're supposed to come and pick up this one, too."

The second grew angry. "Will you shut up about the mutant? Something is very wrong here."

The robot lifted its head.

"I... oh, no."

That was all he had time to say before the discharge of a beam of pink energy from the robot's outstretched hand blasted him into a cloud of superheated but swiftly cooling carbon dust.

**"NIMROD UNIT ONLINE, CONTACT ESTABLISHED. WEAPONS SYSTEMS AT 7.24 PERCENT."** It clamped its hand down on the other purifier's skull and lifted him into the air, his screams muffled by the palm its robotic hand. "**HUMAN COMBATANT IDENTIFIED: DESIGNATION "PURIFIERS." ANALYSIS: THREAT TO PRIMARY OBJECTIVE. TERMINATE**."

A second discharge. A second life extinguished in the blink of an eye.

The boy on the ground stared in terror. "... please... Julia... forgive me... I didn't want to..."

"**UNIT ENERGY AT 16.5 PERCENT. MUTANT TARGET CONFIRMED: JOSHUA GUTHRIE, DESIGNATION: ICARUS. RECOMMENDATION: TERMINATE. ERROR. SYSTEMS AT CRITICAL ENERGY LEVELS. DISCHARGE OF PRIMARY WEAPONS JEOPARDIZES PRIMARY OBJECTIVE. SOLUTION. MASSIVE INTERNAL BLEEDING IN PROGRESS. SOLUTION. TARGET DEATH IMMINENT**." The pink Sentinel clenched its fist. "**PROCEED WITH RECOVERY OF MISSING PARTS. INITIATE REPAIR PROTOCOLS. MISSING PARTS LOCATED. INITIATING TELEPORTATION EVENT.**"

Nimrod vanished in a flare of violent pink energy.

* * *

><p>Bullets designed to penetrate telekinetic shields bounced off of Power Girl's skin, some ricocheting wildly, most simply falling to the ground with their momentum cancelled. It stung a little bit, and she would probably have all manner of unsightly red marks from this, but she was otherwise unharmed. "Is that the best you can do?" she asked.<p>

A thrown vibranium knife scored a long gash along her forearm, and it was little comfort to know that had she been human, it likely would have cut her arm off. Power Girl looked at it the gash for a moment, looked to the Purifier who had thrown it the knife, looked back at the gash. "... F#!$."

A dozen more purifiers began to brandish their knives, Stryker, clutching his charred shoulder, began to laugh.

Overhead, a VTOL jet aircraft zoomed over the amphitheater at extreme low altitude. As it circled back around, and the sound of its engines became all but deafening. Simultaneously, a large pink robot appeared in a flash of pink light.

There, surrounded by enemies wielding weapons that could actually hurt her, with unknown threats approaching, Power Girl took a moment to stare incredulously. "... OK, now you're just making fun of me," she muttered.

**"ALERT: MISSING PIECES DETECTED. ALERT: ENEMY COMBATANTS DETECTED. ANALYZING. OMEGA CLASS THREAT DETECTED. INITIATING REPAIR SEQUENCE."**

Pink light flared around the robot, and the gauntlet Stryker had once worn rattled dangerously on the stage. Then, all at once, the robotic arm shot up towards the Sentinel, still carrying its cargo of severed limb, and reattached to its body. Immediately, repairs seemed to flow across the robot's body. **"SYSTEM REPAIR COMPLETED. UNIT AT 75% OF FULL CAPACITY. ALERT: SILENT SYSTEM ALERT PROTOCOLS DISABLED. ALERT: TELEPATHIC SUPPRESSION FIELD DETECTED. ALERT: SUPERHUMAN CONTACT DETECTED. ALERT: AVENGERS INCOMING. NEW X-MEN INCOMING. UNKNOWN CONTACT INCOMING. ACCESSING DATA STREAM. CHRONAL ERROR DETECTED: DATA STREAM IN FLUX." **Its sensors honed in on Power Girl, taking in every data point it could get, comparing her against what it already had in its data-banks. "**ERROR: SUPERHUMAN NOT FOUND IN HISTORICAL DATA. ANOMALOUS PRESENCE DETECTED. TIMELINE CORRUPTION DETECTED.**" It turned to face her then, seemingly heedless of the barrage of thrown vibranium daggers she was in the middle of dodging. "**ANOMALOUS PRESENCE WILL STATE ITS DESIGNATION.**"

A blast of lightning came from back stage. It washed over the Nimrod without effect.

"Power Girl!" Surge - Noriko - shouted as she and the rest of the team rushed onto the stage.

Power Girl's eyes widened. "... Surge?"

"**DESIGNATION 'POWER GIRL' ACCEPTED. INITIATING HOSTILE ACTION.**"

The amphitheater was nearly empty now. Just a few stragglers remained of the crowd that had been here when the conflict began: mostly lone individuals recording the event on their phones and digital cameras, heedless of the very real danger around them. The real reporters had fled with the crowd, and the television cameras stood unmanned but still recording.

"Why are you here?" Power Girl asked, leaping out of the way of a plasma blast Nimrod sent her way - it detonated against the first line of seats, sending leftover belongings flying in every direction, leaving behind a scorched crater.

"You have to ask?" Hellion asked.

"We're a team," Rockslide said.

"And we don't abandon our own!" Surge finished.

"How touching," came a voice from above. Power Girl spared a glance upwards, and her heart nearly lurched in her chest. "But ultimately futile."

Divine.

Divine was HERE.

"I don't know what you did to take me away from Max," she said, "But you're going to pay. RIGHT NOW."

Battle was joined, and no graceful ballet this, but the superheroic equivalent of a bar room brawl: New X-Men plus Power Girl vs Nimrod vs Divine vs Purifiers. Nimrod let loose with a volley of pink energy blasts, and the team scattered to avoid them: the stage was not so lucky. Explosion after explosion rocked it, and shards of torn and shredded concrete and pieces of rebar flew in every direction. The sound of gunfire became omnipresent.

Divine opened with a blast of heat-vision that carved a bubbling furrow in the Earth twelve feet long, Power Girl appearing to take the brunt of it, before she dove down to engage Power Girl in hand to hand combat. Power Girl was waiting. She had avoided the worst of the beam and pretended to be more grevously injured than she was: she pulled the same trick on Divine that Colossus had pulled on Xander not long previous, suddenly, unexpectedly grabbing her by the arms and yanking her savagely down to meet her knee, blasting the air from Divine's lungs. Then she hefted her clone over her head and threw her into Nimrod, and the impact blasted them both backwards and off the back of the stage.

They came up a moment later, fighting each other with a level of ferocity that neither Kara nor the New X-Men had ever seen, Nimrod attempting to adapt to the Kryptonian's sheer level of strength while she tore huge gaping holes in his structure with every blow, culminating in her heat vision meeting his full strength energy blast, and the ensuing detonation sending them both rocketing backwards.

A little girl lay trampled and bleeding, and in the path of a stray plasma blast. Power Girl's eyes widened, but she didn't hesitate: she flew with desperate speed, took the plasma blast to the back, was flung forward over the little girl, tumbled head first into the wall at the back of the lower section of the stands. She was up a moment later and flying the little girl to safety before darting back into the fray. "We have to get out of here!" she yelled.

Surge nodded. "X-Men," she called through her communicator, motioning for her term to form up on her. "Let's do this! Dust, clear us a path! Hellion, shield us as we move! Power Girl, cover us from above! Mercury, left flank, X-23, cover the right. Rockslide, you take the middle! Let's move, X-Men!" And they did. Moving as a cohesive fighting force, with Power Girl covering them from incoming attacks, the New X-Men cut a path through the line of Purifiers, broke and scattered them.

"OK," came a sudden voice from above, "I like to think that I'm a pretty understanding guy, but this seems downright excessive." A moment later, Spider-Man's spider sense began to tingle, and he leaped to avoid a blast of bright pink energy from the Sentinel, then shot a strand of web to swing down and bowl over a pair of gunmen who had their sights fixed on his team.

The New X-Men looked up.

Iron Man. Spider-Man. Captain America. Miss Marvel.

The Avengers had arrived.

A flash of movement. She had barely enough time to get out of the way before Divine landed feet first in the column of concrete directly behind where her head had been. She emerged just in time to take a blast from Iron Man's repulsors at full strength. A moment later, a familiar looking woman in a black uniform flew down and hit Power Girl as hard as she could, and it was her turn to be knocked flying.

"OW! Damnit, not me! Not the bad guy here!"

Nimrod ascended, then, and Iron Man turned in midair to face him, firing off blast after blast from his repulsor rays, each one knocking the advanced Sentinel backwards.

"**ALERT: SUPERHUMAN RESISTANCE BEYOND CURRENT CAPACITY. INITIATING TELEPORTATION EVENT."**

Nimrod vanished in a burst of pink light.

"Screw this," Divine muttered. "We'll finish this another time, Power Girl." And then she too was gone, leaving a massive sonic boom in her wake.

"All right," Captain America said. "Every single one of you is under arrest. Put your hands on your heads. RIGHT NOW."

After a series of exchanged glances, the New X-Men and the two Purifiers who were still standing did just that.

Kara grimaced. Xander was waking up. She could feel him stirring around the edges of her brain. He wasn't going to be happy.

"Shut those cameras off," Iron Man said.

And on what was left of the stage, lying on his back, his flesh scorched and torn, missing an arm and bleeding from where he had bashed his head when the stage had collapsed, William Stryker laughed like the madman that he was.

**End Chapter 07**

* * *

><p>Author's notes:<p>

OK, I admit, I had fun writing that. It's a bit rougher than I prefer, but I'm sure that I'll live.


	8. Aftermath

A New World in my View  
>by P.H. Wise<br>A Buffy Crossover Fanfic

Chapter 08: Aftermath

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby. This chapter contains some dialogue from New X-Men #27. Marvel owns that, too.

* * *

><p>To be honest, Karen hadn't actually expected to wake up: she'd kind of figured that stepping in front of a high powered sniper round would put her down for good, super powers or not. She certainly hadn't imagined that she'd be waking up more or less unharmed wearing her uniform plus a strange pair of goggles, and secured to a table with some sort of metal manacles. She felt... strong, actually. Very strong. Everything about her field of perception was different. She could see light <strong>everywhere. <strong>In everything. She could hear **everything.** The intensity of the sensation quickly grew overwhelming.

A single tear made its way down her cheek.

She lay like that for what felt like hours. She could feel the earth spinning beneath her at a thousand miles per hour, could feel it hurtling around the sun at 67,000 miles per hour. Sensation built upon sensation. Karen cried out, and squeezed her eyes shut.

She didn't know how long it was before she opened them again, but when she did, the flow of sensation was... better. More manageable. Still beyond belief, but not actively driving her mad.

She tested the manacles. When they didn't immediately give, she raised an eyebrow.

"Don't bother," came a man's voice from out of her field of view. "Those are Shi'ar gravity restraints. They're rated for beings on par with Gladiator, so unless you can lift an entire planet..."

She tilted her head as best she could.

A … man? Stood leaning against the wall. A figure in red and gold armor.

"And I guess the goggles are a clouded diamond matrix?" she asked weakly, thinking of the device that Ultra-Humanite had once used in the Power Girl comic book in an effort to keep Power Girl captive long enough to perform a 'Grand Theft Me' style body swap. It hadn't worked, but still. Same device, different origin. She shivered.

"Interesting. You've been a prisoner of the Shi'ar before?"

She shook her head. "Lucky guess."

The robot, or man, or whatever it was, gave every impression of having snorted. "... Do you know why you're here?" he asked.

Karen searched her memories. Nothing. No hint of anything that might have happened between stepping in front of that bullet and now. She felt a sense of panic rising in her, but she squashed it down, forced herself to think. If she hadn't been moving her body, obviously someone had. … Kara? Had it been Kara? She waited for Kara to say something. To give some hint of what had happened..

Nothing.

Her efforts not to panic became significantly less successful. "... Look, whoever you are, I'm sure I haven't done anything wrong, and..." she trailed off under the armored figure's expressionless gaze. Her first instinct was to ask after Laurie, and the question was nearly out of her mouth before she bit it back: if she was a prisoner, the last thing she wanted to do was give her captives information that could be used against her, or her friends. "Am I being accused of something?" she asked.

"You and your friends caused several million dollars in property damage to the city of North Salem. More than that, six hundred people in attendance at William Stryker's speaking engagement were injured. Two were killed. One of those killed was a young pregnant mother. And the whole thing happened on TV."

Karen felt her hackles rise.

"Right now," the armored figure went on, "The major networks are just breaking the news to the American people. And it's going to play over and over and over, all over the world."

"Right," Karen said angrily. She still didn't remember a damn thing about what had happened, but massive property damage? Injuries? Deaths? Assuming Kara had been in control of the body when everything went down, did that sound like something she'd do? Or like something the New X-Men would do? So. For some reason they'd gone to William Stryker's speaking event. … She'd heard of the man. What she'd heard had not impressed her. "Right," Karen said, her anger and her tongue getting ahead of her brain, and getting the likely series of events more or less correct mostly by accident, "Because smarmy televangelist William Joseph Simmons and his super-friends tried to do a William Boroughs, and it's not their fault, it's ours."

The armored figure seemed taken aback, and actually had to take a moment to parse that out before replying with, "There's such a thing as shouting 'Fire' in a crowded theater."

"There's also such a thing as there being an actual fire in a crowded theater, and a group of mutants showing up to put it out only to find the ushers are packing flamethrowers, and..." She trailed off. Damn. That one had gotten away from her. "Can I start that over?"

Karen had the distinct impression that the armored figure was glaring at her.

And then Kara was there. Next to her. Standing across from the armored figure. Looking mortified. "Xander. Mouth. Talking. Make with the stoppage."

Karen was halfway tempted to mouth off at Kara, too, but she somehow she suspected that having tall red and shiny here thinking she was crazy probably wasn't going to help her case. She shut her mouth. 'Nice of her to finally show up,' she thought, still more than a little bit angry.

The armored figure strode angrily out of the room. The door slid shut with a hiss.

"Hey," Kara said, "Trying to keep your friends alive, rescue people, and fight off Stryker's goons, Divine, and a big glowing pink robot thing at the same with your unconscious self trying to kick me out of the driver's seat for half the fight takes a lot out of a girl."

Karen blinked. 'Divine? wait... did you just respond to me thinking at you?'

"Skanky black haired clone-me. It's a long story. And, uh, yeah? What, did you think I was talking out loud all this time?"

Karen felt like a fool. A totally furious fool, but a fool. 'And you were going to clue me in on this when?'

"... er..."

Karen felt like screaming. She struggled in her bonds a bit. They didn't budge. 'I wish my hands were free so I could hit you,' she thought.

"You'd be hitting yourself, too."

'Worth it. … Gah, you know that thing you do where you're not there? Can you do that again?'

Kara shook her head grimly. "No chance. You need to know what happened before you get us into even more trouble than you already have."

'Than YOU already have.'

"Just shut up and listen already."

She did. She thought about ignoring Kara just for spite, but self-preservation won out: she needed to know what had happened. She grit her teeth, and she listened.

* * *

><p>"What do you think?"<p>

The armored figure - Iron Man - shrugged almost imperceptibly. "About the girl, or about the mutants?"

"Mutants," Captain America said.

"Their stories are consistent," Iron Man said, his tone noncommittal. "If the damage hadn't been so widespread, and forum so high profile, I'd be inclined to let them go. But as is, it's going to be difficult to justify not handing them over to the police."

On a large video screen set into the wall before the two heroes, the video recordings of the incident were playing. There had been four news crews present. Of those, two had managed to get recordings of the entire event, with the other two cutting out during the fighting.

"_Why have you come?" Stryker's voice asked._

"_To give you a chance," Power Girl replied. "To stop this. To give up this hate that has poisoned you: this hate that you spread to everyone you touch." She looked out at the crowd, "I've seen what human beings can do. The good and the bad. Your aggression, your blind submission to leaders, your hostility to outsiders, your compassion for others, love for your children, your great, soaring, passionate intelligence. You can be a great people; I know that you wish to be. Turn away from this madness."_

"_Or what?"_

"_Or I'll stop you."_

"And the girl?" Captain America asked.

"Angry. Sarcastic. She's got a problem with authority." Beneath his mask, he grinned humorlessly. "You'd almost think she was a teenager."

"It's strange, isn't it?"

Iron Man looked to Captain America, waiting for him to continue.

"The young woman in the video doesn't strike me as a teenage girl. Physically, sure, but..." He gestured to Power Girl's image on the screen. There was a young woman who had power. Who knew it. Who knew how to use it responsibly. There was an undeniable authority in her voice and in her bearing. An authority that was missing in the girl restrained in the other room. "She reminds me of..."

"You too?"

Captain America nodded. "Think they're related?"

"Maybe. She did claim to be a 'daughter of Krypton.'"

"And your scans?"

"They confirm that much," Iron Man said. "She's definitely a Kryptonian. Which means the other one likely is as well. The only question is, are they survivors of a version of Krypton in our world, or are they from the other universe?"

"Not the **only** question," Captain America said.

Iron Man conceded the point. An alert popped up on his HUD. "The Blackbird is inbound. Looks like Logan is on his way, and he's not alone." He grimaced. "This is going to be unpleasant."

* * *

><p>"Calm down, Logan. Going into this half-cocked is only going to make things worse."<p>

"I am calm," Logan said angrily as he stalked ahead of the rest of the group. "Real calm." They'd only just landed in the hanger at Stark Tower. Only just emerged from the Blackbird. Behind him, Emma Frost looked icy and stony-faced, Scott Summers and Kitty Pryde looked worried, Colossus looked grim, and Beast's expression was carefully neutral. "And if Tony don't return our kids, I'm gonna calmly shove my claws right up his..."

"Logan!"

Logan didn't apologize. Didn't look apologetic. Didn't feel apologetic. Scott took that to mean he apologized.

* * *

><p>Ben Grimm's face appeared on the screen. "Hey, is this thing on?"<p>

Tony Stark blinked in surprise behind his mask. The X-Men had landed. They were on their way up from the hanger. He'd been about to go to meet them, when a call came in from the Fantastic Four. Reed he might have expected, but Ben? "I'm in the middle of something, Ben," he said.

"Yeah, I know. Ya got Karen locked up in that tower o' yours."

"... You're calling about that?"

"Actually, I'm calling to say that we're on our way over, and that you better be treatin' Karen like a lady, otherwise I might just have to do some Clobberin' when I get there."

The door opened with a hiss. His sensors registered the presence of the new arrivals, but he himself did not notice.

Johnny Storm's voice came over the line from somewhere off screen, "Hey, can we tell him we're on our way without threatening violence to a leader of the Avengers?"

Ben snorted, and turned to glare at someone off screen - Johnny, probably. "Shut yer trap. I said I'd make the call to the Avengers, I'm makin' the call to the Avengers." He looked back at the screen. "We'll be landing in ten, Iron Man."

"We catch ya at a bad time, Tony?" came a very angry, very familiar voice from the door.

He turned, cutting the connection to the Fantastic Four as he did so.

The X-Men were here.

* * *

><p>"... rioting continues in the town of North Salem, New York in the wake of the mutant assassination attempt on evangelist William Stryker. Here at Fox News, we've received exclusive footage of that confrontation."<p>

Footage began to play.

"_You come against us with your demon fueled powers, but we come against you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!" _

"_Why have you come?"_

"_To stop you."_

_Stryker seemed momentarily taken aback, but he recovered quickly. He laughed. "Just like that, you'll stop me? You think you can stand against the will of God, girl? Who do you think you are?"_

_She continued her slow walk towards him. "I'm the last daughter of Krypton. I've seen the death of worlds, survived the death of universes. I stood against the Blackest Night, I've faced monsters, gods, and demons. I'm Power Girl, and I am not afraid of you, William Stryker."_

_Stryker produced a pink gauntlet from behind the podium and raised it over his head. "I have the holy spirit power, girl. I intend to win the war between heaven and hell."_

_She fired lasers from her eyes. She cut off his arm at the shoulder. And then she smiled at the fallen preacher. "You and what arm-y?"_

The camera returned to the anchor. "As shocking as this footage is, it did not end there. Soon, this 'Power Girl's' mutant allies arrived, and the ensuing battle resulted in hundreds of injuries. Here to discuss the implications of this attack and what it means for our safety is political consultant and Fox News contributor, Dick Morris. Dick?"

"Hello, Jason. Good to be here."

"Good to have you. So, what does this incident mean for the mutant problem?"

"Oh, I think it serves to underline the very real problem that we've allowed to brew in our society for years now. Mutants are out of control. They've been out of control for a long time, and I think the American people are finally waking up to that fact."

"Michael Barone has a column in the Washington Examiner which explains the long history of mutation and mutant terrorism in America, and how the majority in both Democratic and Republican parties are now behind the 8-ball in their reelection campaigns because of a perceived lack of toughness on the mutant problem. How much of a factor is that really likely to be in the coming elections?"

Dick smiled grimly. "If anything, Mr. Barone is understanding the issue. The real question isn't 'how are these politicians going to wiggle into a more comfortable position?' The real question is, 'how can any politician who supports the mutant agenda hope to survive the coming election?' and 'When will the war on terror begin to address the problem of mutant terrorism?' Even mutant groups like the so called 'X-Men,' who have long claimed to be the moderates in this debate, have engaged in brutal attacks against Americans, with this attack on Reverend Stryker's peaceful prayer gathering being only the latest in a long list of atrocities they have carried out."

"Do you have any reaction to what appears to be evidence of the Xavier institute training children as anti-human terrorists? And an alliance with what is either a very disturbed young mutant, or an extra-terrestrial illegal alien?"

"Only that it confirms what we've suspected for a long time. The alien angle is new, but we can hardly be surprised now by the depths of the depravity to which these creatures are willing to sink. These children should be receiving treatment for their mutation, not trained to use it to kill their fellow Americans in support of some radical mutant-superiority agenda."

"Dick Morris, thank you very much for your time. Joining me now is Doctor Jensen from the Genetech corporation. Doctor, your company once offered a cure for mutation, only to have that cure and its related research destroyed in an act of mutant terrorism, is that correct?"

* * *

><p>"Cut the bullshit, Tony," Scott said. He'd gone with glasses and street clothes rather than spandex and visor today. They were all in street clothes, actually, save Emma, who wore a variant on her standard revealing white outfit. "We all know the outcome if this actually goes to trial: it will be a circus. The media will go into a feeding frenzy, the kids will end up in jail for the rest of their natural lives, and the mutant community will be even further alienated from the rest of humanity."<p>

"That's less of a concern than it used to be," Iron Man replied. "There's what, two hundred of you now?"

"Actually, no," Beast said. "Nine in ten mutants were depowered on M-Day. But that still leaves us with a world wide population numbering in the tens of thousands at the low end, hundreds of thousands at the high end." The others were looking at him now, and he grew uncomfortable. "... Ah. But that is neither here nor there."

Scott shook his head. "You can't seriously want to put our students in jail for confronting a man who was in the process of starting a race riot. Who had actually started that riot before most of them even got involved!"

"That's for the courts to decide," Iron Man said.

"I'm not going to argue with you. We're taking our students."

Logan nodded in agreement. "Like it or not, bub, they're comin' with us."

Colossus didn't transform, but he did crack his knuckles, and made it quite clear with his body language that he intended to back up his team.

"Just try it," Iron Man said.

Emma looked bored. "Much as I enjoy the sight of male posturing," she said, her tone scornful, "I would prefer we all sat down and discussed this like civilized people."

The others looked to her, then to Scott. When Scott relaxed, so did they. Iron Man stood down soon after.

"Not before we see the students," Scott said.

"Of course, dear."

* * *

><p>"And we're back with continuing coverage of the rioting in North Salem," Anderson Cooper said, facing the camera, the CNN logo behind him, news ticker crawling across the bottom of the screen. "As many of you will already have heard, the riot began at 4:30 PM eastern standard time when evangelist William Stryker told a crowd of thousands, quote, 'The time has come. Today, we take back the paradise that was lost by our inaction. Today, by your actions, we strike a blow for the Lord. By the power of the holy spirit, we shall be more than conquerors, my children. We shall be sons and daughters of the most high God.' unquote. But that's not where the story ends. A moment later, the rally was disrupted by the arrival of what was apparently an angry superhuman teenager, claiming she had come to give Reverend Stryker, quote 'A chance to stop this.' unquote. Thanks to the associated press, CNN has gained access to the local news footage of the event, which we're going to play for you now. We must advise you that some of the footage is graphic, and that if you have small children, you may wish to have them leave the room now."<p>

The footage began - and mostly unedited footage this time - playing from the beginning to the arrival of the New X-Men and the beginning of the battle. When it concluded, the camera cut back to Anderson Cooper, his expression grim.

"Here to discuss both sides of the issue, we have Patricia Tilby, journalist, reporter for WNBC, and long time supporter of peaceful human-mutant coexistence, and Desmond Creed, son of the late Graydon Creed and current head of the human advocacy group, 'Friends of Humanity.' Trish, Desmond, thank you for appearing on the show."

"Pleasure to be here, Anderson," Patricia said, echoed a moment later by Desmond's, "Thank you for having me."

* * *

><p>"Heya Cap," Ben called as he hopped down from his seat in the Fantastic Four's inexplicably open topped, compartmented private transport.<p>

Captain America nodded. "Captain Grimm," he replied.

Johnny laughed at that, hopping down from the plane himself.

"C'mon, Cap, yer making me blush."

Sue and Reed disembarked next, and Captain America smiled. "Sorry, Ben." He looked to the others. "Tony's upstairs with the X-Men, but I thought I should come down here to meet you in person. You've seen the news, I take it?"

"Some of it," Reed replied. "I don't think they've decided what narrative they're going to advance yet."

"Well, things are serious. Anti-mutant sentiment has been on the rise for some time now, and Maria thinks that if S.H.I.E.L.D. makes an example now, it will do a lot to calm things down."

Reed nodded at that. They whole group began to head up towards the upper levels where Tony and the X-Men waited.

"Right. But what do **you** think?" Ben asked.

* * *

><p>"... come now, our reputation is entirely undeserved, I assure you," Desmond Creed said, looking straight into the camera, his face the very picture of sincerity. "The Friends of Humanity are not anti-mutant. We are simply pro-human. We do not and have never opposed the proposition that all men are entitled to equal rights under the law; what we oppose is this notion advanced by Ms. Tilby and others that mutants somehow deserve <strong>special<strong> rights."

"Is the right to privacy a special right, Mr. Creed? Is our protection against unreasonable searches and seizures a special right? The right to due process? Freedom of religion, speech, and the press? The right to assemble and petition the government for the redress of grievances?" Trish shook her head. "Let's not mince words, Mr. Creed. Your organization has a long and storied history of hate crimes against mutants..."

"Unsubstantiated rumors, Ms. Tilby," Creed interrupted.

"...and while you may think that the American people have forgotten," Patricia said, not stopping for Desmond's comment, "I assure you that we have not."

"You speak of the rights guaranteed to us in the Bill of Rights, which our founding fathers passed down to us, yet the fact remains that in this case, a band of mutants launched a savage attack on a peaceful gathering of individuals engaged in the exercise of their inalienable right to freedom of speech and of religion."

"In all fairness, Mr. Creed," Anderson broke in, "Reverend Stryker was clearly instigating his riot long before the group of mutants arrived, and based on what we could see in the recordings retrieved from local news sources and the Associated Press, he and his initiated the violence."

"They were provoked, Anderson," Desmond replied. "The manner of this 'Power Girl's' arrival was clearly intended to elicit exactly the sort of response that it did. Reverend Stryker and his followers are the victim of a deliberate attempt by agents of the mutant agenda to provoke them into intemperate action on a national stage. But even if you set that aside, consider the abilities of those mutants seen on the tape. Can there be any doubt that these children, these... teenagers, are every bit as dangerous as any military weapon system? This once again underlines just how badly we need that piece of legislation which congress still, irresponsibly, refuses to bring to the floor of either the House or the Senate: the Mutant Registration Act. We MUST know who these people are, where they are, how far their genetic influence extends, and most importantly, what they can do. The safety of America demands no less."

"Unfortunately," Anderson began, looking at the time remaining for his segment, "We'll have to leave it there..."

"Speaking of the extent of genetic influence," Tricia said, "Should you not be on such a list yourself, Mr. Creed? Who knows what powers your children might manifest thanks to your grandfather's genes? Individuals similar to the mutant terrorist known as 'Sabertooth' could prove to be quite dangerous, could they not?"

Desmond Creed's face visibly reddened with anger. "My family's personal history has no relevance to this debate, Ms. Tilby!" he said, maintaining his calm by a hairsbreadth. "Were you not speaking just moments ago of the right to privacy?"

Anderson shot Tricia a warning look.

Tricia, not looking contrite in the least, smiled. "Sorry, Anderson. I was just curious. If Mr. Creed is willing to advance as discredited and unpopular an idea as the old turnip-ghost Mutant Registration Act, he should be willing to consider what impact it might have on his own family. As should we all."

"And we'll leave it there," Anderson said, and the camera faded out.

* * *

><p>It's funny how you never seem to read about just how <strong>boring<strong> it is to be strapped down on a table with your powers negated and totally helpless while other people decided your fate. Even worse, Karen kind of had to go to the bathroom, and her nose was itching like nobody's business.

"... um... hello?" she called.

"You could always use your freezing breath to break free if it's that bad, you know."

Karen glanced towards Kara, whose ghostly image was standing just to the left of the table. 'I'm trying NOT to convince them that I'm some horrible supervillain.'

"Just saying."

Karen didn't reply.

Silence.

The door opened without warning, startling Karen on her table: she jerked against her restraints. A moment later, Emma Frost and a guy in a red and blue spider costume with a 'web' motif and a spider design on his chest came walking into the room. The spider guy stopped at the door.

"... Hi." Karen managed.

Emma looked down at her. "We are not amused," she said coldly.

"... yeah..."

"I would ask you to explain yourself," Emma said, "But I believe I have gathered the necessary information."

Karen felt a stab of anger at that. She was starting to really dislike telepathy. Not that she'd ever say that out loud. … not that it mattered. Emma knew. Stupid telepathy.

"Spiderman is going to release you, and then we are going to go and talk this over with the Avengers. Before that happens, I am going to put a kind of temporary mental block in place to prevent you from accidentally destroying half the building on the way to the meeting room. It will not prevent you from intentionally utilizing your strength; it will simply alter your perception of how much strength you are applying at any given time. If you object, I will induce paralysis instead. I will also cause you to vomit uncontrollably any time you hear the word 'practicable.' I trust you do not object?"

Karen shook her head.

"Good."

Emma Frost, Karen decided, was kind of terrifying.

* * *

><p>Ten minutes later, they were gathered around a large meeting: Captain American, Iron Man. Miss Marvel. Spider Man. Scott Summers. Emma Frost. Kitty Pryde. Piotr 'Peter' Rasputin. Logan. Hank McCoy. Benjamin Grimm. Reed Richards. Susan Richards. Johnny Storm. Also present was Karen Starr - the instigator - and Noriko Ashida, leader of the team of mutants who had come to Karen's rescue.<p>

The X-Men had met with their students. Had come to the meeting room. Had sat down with the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. Now they just had to work through this mess. And not let it devolve into violence.

Watching Wolverine clench and unclench his fists every few seconds, Karen was sure they were all doomed.

"I think it's time we laid our cards out on the table," Captain America said.

Iron Man nodded, and then turned to Karen. "We know what you are, Ms. Starr. We know that you're a Kryptonian. We know what your kind is capable of. What we don't know is how you got here, and how she got here." He opened his hand, projecting a holographic image of Divine as she had looked during the battle at the amphitheater. "I see from some of your faces that this comes as a surprise to some of you."

"Careful," Kara said, her voice barely more than a whisper in Karen's ear, "I don't think you want to piss these people off."

'Little late for that.'

"Any more than you already have."

'Right.'

"This is not the first time the Avengers have encountered a Kryptonian," Captain America said. A handful of assistants began passing out dossiers. "The file you're now receiving is an account of our previous encounter with a member of this species, a native to a parallel Earth who calls himself 'Superman.'

Kara's eyes went wide. "They know about...?" She could hardly ask the question. "Xander, if they've met Kal, then it's possible that they might know a way to..." she trailed off again, her voice thick with emotion. "I could go **home.**"

Karen felt a stab of homesickness go through her, then. It all came rushing back all at once. Home. Willow. Giles. Buffy. … God, she even missed CORDELIA, of all people. Emma had told her in no uncertain terms that she was not to tell these people that she and Kara were distinct personalities, and that made her nervous, too. Something must have shown on her face, because a moment later, Captain America said, "So you've heard of him."

Karen nodded. She hesitated, but at Kara's approving nod, she said, "... He's my cousin. Sort of."

* * *

><p>"... and our moment of Geek tonight comes with the assistance of Bill Nye, better known as Bill Nye the Science Guy. Mr. Nye, thank you so much for agreeing to appear on the show."<p>

Bill smiled. "Thank you, Rachel. Always happy to help."

Rachel nodded. "In light of recent events, Mr. Nye, I thought you might address the question of alien life, and what Power Girl's apparent claim means for the world of science."

"It's interesting. She's not the first human-like alien that humanity has encountered, of course, but her claim of extraterrestrial origin, if true, would add another data point to what is in recent years become the fastest growing field of science: Xenobiology. The first thing your viewers should keep in mind is that while there's no particular reason why an alien species would look humanoid, there is a perfectly good rationale for why a few of them might. It's called convergence. It's what happens when you take two creatures with body plans that are at least somewhat similar and introduce them to an environment that selects for a particular niche or function. It's how we can end up with things like Tasmanian tigers and grey wolves - two animals that come from distinctly different branches of the genetic tree, but look reasonably similar if you don't look too closely at the individual details, and fill the same niche within their respective ecosystems. Now, before we'd made contact with alien species, we'd never seen an example of convergent evolution between completely distinct and isolated forms of life..."

* * *

><p>"While I might be inclined to simply return Karen to her native dimension and wash my hands of her," Iron Man said, "The only means by which we have ever traveled to that particular world is no longer accessible to us."<p>

"I love you, too, Scrap Dude," Karen said.

He was glaring at her again. She was sure of it.

"Xander!" Kara hissed warningly. And then she said, "Ask him how he knows it's actually my native dimension, and not just one that's closely related."

Karen did, and Reed was the one who answered: "I could run a few tests if I had access to the dimension in question. We would need to ensure that the unique dimensional frequencies of both Karen and the reality you encountered were an exact match. This is... quite fascinating. The Avengers and this... Justice League of America ultimately worked together to defeat this cosmic entity 'Krona' and foil his attempt to destroy both universes...?"

"We can read it just fine ourselves," Logan snapped irritably.

"And your means of transport to this other universe was," Beast looked down at the page, then back up at Iron Man. "Mjollnir?"

Iron Man nodded.

"How regrettable that the weapon of the thunder god is unavailable for our use," Beast said.

Reed Richards kept his face very carefully blank.

"Actually," Ben said, "It's in Oklahoma. But that don't matter, cause none of us can even pick it up."

Karen stared. "... Oklahoma?" she mouthed.

"Unfortunately," Iron Man said, "none of that addresses what actually happened." He looked at Karen. "You may not have intended it, but your actions have put us all in a very difficult position. The claim of attempted assassination you made has proven particularly controversial. People are up in arms. They're calling you delusional, and a liar. I suppose the X-Men have no direct evidence of criminal behavior on Stryker's part? Nothing other than the word of your telepaths?"

Every X-Man save Emma looked distinctly uncomfortable.

"Karen," Emma began, "Where DID you leave that journal?"

All eyes went to Karen.

"What journal?" Iron Man asked.

Karen flushed. Kara spoke, and Karen repeated after her, though only Emma could hear that she was being given the words to say: "The journal of Matthew Risman, the professional assassin that works for Stryker. The one where he details his experience working for Stryker, and the jobs he's done, and talks about how he used to feel guilty about what he did, before Stryker gave him clarity and showed him the path to the Lord. The one I hid next to the Balanced Rock before I went to confront Stryker."

Everyone in the room save Emma stared at Karen in surprise.

Emma looked like the cat that had caught the canary. "Provided that my student can produce this journal, I trust there will be no need to allow S.H.I.E.L.D. to make an example of her?"

Iron Man grimaced behind his mask, and Karen saw it - x-ray vision was really starting to freak her out, and she didn't dare look at Miss Frost for fear that she would immediately know that Karen could see right through her clothes, and do something about it.

'Your fear is entirely justified, child,' came Emma's voice in her thoughts. Karen tried very hard not to shudder.

"I don't know if I can..." Iron Man began.

"Tony, that's enough," Captain America said, with just a hint of disapproval.

Iron Man matched gazes with the Captain for a long moment. And then he looked down. "Fine."

"What we should be discussing," Emma continued, "Is Karen's sister." She gestured to the image that still floated above the table. "Divine."

All eyes went to Karen once more, and she felt extremely awkward. 'Little help here?' she thought.

"Seriously? You can't make something up?"

'I suck at improvisation!'

"Well I suck at lying!"

'Think of something!'

"... Ok, I think I have something..."

Karen looked down. Kara began to speak her lie, and Karen repeated it for the benefit of everyone who wasn't Emma Frost. A lie that was primarily true. "... She wasn't always like this," she said. And that was true - she'd formerly been a genetic sample taken without Kara's knowledge, not an evil clone. "A man from my world by the name of Maxwell Lord took control of her with his power. He's what's called a mental dominant; he's got a very specialized form of telepathy that allows him to..."

Johnny grimaced. "Control other people's minds?"

Karen nodded. "He's very, very powerful. He's able to control minds on a global scale: he forced everyone in the world to forget that he had ever existed. His control is subtle, too. He doesn't so much force you to do something as he introduces a set of facts into the equation that completely change your behavior. He doesn't operate you like a puppet - he pushes, and... your friends are discussing dinner options, and you hear it as a discussion of plans for conquest, and when they protest their innocence, you hear further grandiose boasts. Or someone is eating a chicken dinner, and you see them eating a baby, or..." She trailed off, shuddering. "I don't know what his plans were for Divine, but when I was pulled through, we were fighting, and I think she must have been pulled through with me. But I didn't know she was here until she showed up earlier today."

Sue frowned. "Are you aware of any reliable means of detecting whether or not someone is under his influence?"

Karen shook her head. "I'm not exactly an expert on the telepathic side of things."

"So," Iron Man said, sounding more than a little displeased. "We have an extremely powerful, extremely lethal being who draws power from sunlight operating under the mental control of a villain from another dimension. Is that what you're telling me?"

Karen winced. "Well, when you put it like that..."

* * *

><p>In the end, there was little they could do but adopt an attitude of 'wait and see.' Aside from Karen herself, there were two people that Captain America and Iron Man were reasonably sure could deal with Divine: Thor and Sentry. … and Thor was missing, and Sentry was becoming both increasingly unstable and increasingly unreliable. So it was that Karen and the New X-Men were at last returned to the grounds of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. Officially, they were all under house arrest until such time as they were cleared of any wrong-doing. Unofficially, with the journal now in the hands of the Avengers, things were looking as good as could be expected.<p>

The National Guard had come in force to the town of North Salem. A town with a population of a little over five thousand people had been completely overwhelmed by Stryker's followers even before they started rioting, but now...

There was no movement on the streets save soldiers when the Blackbird flew over head. It looked as though half the town had been looted. National Guard blockades were a regular feature, and traffic was still being diverted around the area. Outside the gates to the Xavier mansion, a diminished but still significant crowd remained, chanting anti-mutant slogans and facing off against a line of troops from both the National Guard and the Office of National Emergency.

The road leading to the school bore signs of recent conflict.

"... you guys came to get us even though THIS was happening?" Noriko asked incredulously.

Scott nodded. "Not before recalling every available X-Man from around the world, but yes."

"Why?"

Scott met Noriko's gaze.

"... Oh."

Nothing more was said, save that which needed no words to express.

As she walked through the front door, Karen stretched a bit and sighed. "... be it ever so humble," she murmured, with just a touch of bitterness and sarcasm coming through..

"There's no place like home," Noriko finished, and meant it.

* * *

><p>Morning broke. A new day. A new chance. Risman's journal hadn't been recovered in time for the previous day's news cycle, but it was headline news today. Divine had only just finished reading it, in fact. Huh. Son of a bitch allegedly was hiring assassins to assassinate mutants and their supporters. Risman had been arrested late last night, and the FBI was going to be taking Stryker into custody as soon as he was released from the hospital.<p>

She set the paper down.

The police were looking for her after yesterday's events. But so were plenty of people. About now, she was beyond caring. She'd spent the evening after the fight in space, exposing herself to the direct effects of the solar wind. If she was going to have to deal with Power Girl, she needed to be at full strength. Now she was.

She had robbed a few dozen homes at around three A.M. this morning. Not something Max would be proud of, but Divine was determined to do whatever she had to in order to get back to him. She still had a purpose to serve in the other world. Humans spent their lives in doubt and fear, often lying to themselves, inventing a purpose to their lives, desperately wanting to believe that it wasn't all just some accident. That it all had some meaning. And unlike the majority of the stinking mass of humanity, Divine did not have to wonder, did not have to fear, did not have to make up any sort of story: she knew exactly what her purpose was.

Maxwell Lord had created her to stop the war before it could begin. The war between humanity and the metahumans. The war which was coming as surely as the sunrise. A war which she could hardly prevent while stuck in this miserable, backwards, worthless reality. That Power Girl was stuck here as well was infuriating. She'd acted irrationally. Reacted on instinct. Gone into battle against Power Girl and her allies and that surprisingly resilient robot without considering whether or not it was really in Max's best interests.

It had taken some doing, some asking of questions, some following of leads. It wasn't something Max had really prepared her for. It was... frustrating.

The newspaper burst into flames on the bench beside her. Damn. She needed to be more careful about that heat vision. It was so easy to let it get out of control. So very... easy.

A man in a business suit sat down on the bench next to her, newspaper in hand.

She gave him a look. For a moment, she thought about how easy it would be to tear him limb from limb. Or burn him to ash. Or freeze him. Hell, she could always lob him out into space. That trick was always good for a laugh.

… no. He was a human. Unless he gave her a reason to kill him...

"You've been a busy bee," he said. "You're in the newspaper and everything."

She looked up. He wasn't looking at her. He was looking at the blurry photo of her fighting Power Girl at that damned amphitheater the other day. She'd changed her clothing since then. Street clothes. Black leather pants. Red tanktop. Thin, black jacket. "Excuse me?"

"Relax. I'm here to make an offer. Nothing more."

Her eyes narrowed. "All right. Talk."

"Young lady like you's got needs, am I right? Interests? Things that she wants?"

"Keep talking."

"My employer is prepared to provide those things. Wealth. Power. Men. Women, if that's more your style. Maybe even a way home, if we both play our cards right."

Divine's interest began to fade the moment the man went into his list, but at the words 'a way home,' he had her full and undivided attention. "What do you know about me?"

"We know that you are not, as they say, 'from around here.' If going home is all you want, well, we're prepared to assist you."

"For a price."

"Nothing's free, kid. Not even salvation."

"How do I know you're not just some crazy bastard who gets off on bullshit?"

The man laughed. "You don't."

Divine almost put a fist through his head right then and there. Almost. "If I decide to cooperate, and I find out you're just jerking me around? I'm going to kill you and everyone you work for, and there's nothing you can do to stop me. We clear?"

"Crystal."

She fell silent.

He placed a business card with something hand written on it onto the park bench. "Give it some thought. If you decide you want to cooperate, go to this address. We'll contact you within a week or two of your arrival there."

Divine looked down at the card. An address. Some place in a city called Stamford, Connecticut. The man rose to his feet.

She watched as he walked away. New York bustled around her. The sun shone on her face.

She clenched her fist.

**End Chapter 08**

Next: Like the song says, 'we don't need no civil war'  
>This time, things go more than a little differently...<p> 


	9. Identity Issues

Smoke still rose from North Salem, but the riot had, for the most part, begun to peter out. A vastly diminished crowd still chanted anti-mutant slogans outside of the Xavier Institute's front gates. The towering shapes of four Sentinels stood just inside the gates.

Funny how giant robots armed with weaponry straight out of a science fiction novel can break a crowd's will to storm a building.

Aircraft had been arriving at the school for most of the evening. Some government. Some private. Most carrying mutants. Already the mutant population at the school had topped five hundred. About twenty of those were students. Another twenty were prospective students. Another dozen were X-Men and former X-Men who had made it through the Decimation with powers intact, recalled from their various positions around the world.

The children of Charles Xavier's dream were coming home.

The Blackbird had only just landed. Karen and the other New X-Men had been uncharacteristically silent on the trip back from Stark Tower. Perhaps the scolding they had received had something to do with that.

"Of all the irresponsible..."

"Were you even thinking?"

"It may have been the right thing to do, Noriko, but it certainly doesn't help any of us!"

"Hey, back off! Karen saved Laurie's life! You think we were going to leave her to face Stryker alone? We're a team, and we don't abandon our own! We'll take whatever punishment you want to give us, but we did the right thing, and that's all there is to it."

Now, Karen was walking back to 'the dorm' level. The rest of her team was walking with her.

"Why didn't you tell us you weren't a mutant?" Cessily asked.

Karen looked down. "... I figured since this place is mutants only..."

"There have been alien students in the past," Cessily said. "You guys remember Warlock, right?"

The others nodded.

"I didn't want..."

Julian glared at Karen. "I get it. You didn't want us to kick the shit out of you for not being a mutant. So instead, maybe we'll kick the shit out of you for lying to us."

"Hellion..." Noriko began.

"I'm not breaking ranks in front of the teachers, Nori," Julian said, "Like you said, we're a team. But that doesn't mean I'm not pissed as all hell. Not just about the lie. Mr. Summers is right: we made things way the hell worse for mutants tonight. What are we supposed to do now?"

Rockslide nodded in agreement.

Karen couldn't meet anyone else's gaze. "Would it help if I said I was sorry?" she asked.

"It might," Julian replied. "Why don't you give it a try, and we can find out."

Karen could feel her anger rising. Her body language became completely closed off. "Up yours, Julian," she snapped, and then stormed off ahead of the rest of the group.

"Karen, wait!" Cessily called, reaching out as if to call her back.

Karen kept right on going.

"Nicely handled," Kara said in Karen's head as she stormed away, leaving her team staring at her retreating back. "I think you've got a real future as a diplomat."

"Shut the hell up, Kara," Karen hissed.

* * *

><p>A New World in my View<br>by P.H. Wise  
>A Power Girl Crossover Fanfic<p>

Chapter 09: Identity Issues

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby.

* * *

><p>Kara Zor-L woke with the dawn. The curtains were drawn, and Noriko was still asleep. She stretched in her bed, savoring the feeling of her sheets, her blanket, the mattress beneath her. It was good. Especially after the unpleasantness last night. It was all... good.<p>

She rose to her feet, her hair still mussed from sleep, and walked into the bathroom, rubbing absently at her eyes. For a long moment, she considered her reflection in the mirror. Wow. Bed-head aside, she was really starting to need a haircut. It was the day after her confrontation with Stryker. Almost two months since she'd arrived here. Almost two months of unchecked hair growth. Half an inch? An inch? She wasn't sure. It was looking shaggy, though. She'd have to look into getting some enchanted scissors. Looking in the mirror still kind of weirded her: before she'd come here, her body had been the body of a woman in her early twenties. After she'd arrived, her body had been the body of a seventeen year old. Every now and again, she'd get one of those sudden surges of teenaged hormones, and... well, she was just glad she wasn't breaking out in pimples.

As she had every morning since her arrival at the Xavier Institute, she stripped out of her pajamas, turned on the shower, and stepped into the stream of hot water. She savored it. The hot water on her skin. The motions of her fingers as she washed her hair. As she rinsed it. As she scrubbed herself with soap. Xander, she decided, was an idiot. He didn't need to tell everyone his deepest darkest secrets, but... yeah. Some of that was her fault, though. She admitted that. She'd thrown a huge wrench into things by going after Stryker like that. But even so...

She sighed.

Then there was the strangest feeling, then, like something was passing through her. '... Oh God... Xander?' And then...

Xander Harris came to awareness suddenly standing in the shower, hot water streaming over her - or rather, Power Girl's - body. "... What the hell?" she asked.

Kara, now in ghostly form, looked concerned. "... OK, that was..."

Kara gasped, once again in control of her body, sensation returning with all its full force and vigor. And then she was standing next to her body once more, with Xander behind the wheel. "... Weird."

They exchanged worried glances, last night's argument all but forgotten in the face of what was, to them, a far more pressing problem.

"... We'd better talk to Miss Frost," they said in unison.

* * *

><p><em>Emma Frost's Office<br>Xavier Institute for Higher Learning_

"I see," Emma said. She was seated behind her desk, Karen pacing back and forth on the carpet in front of it.

"You see?" Karen asked. "What do you mean, 'you see?'" There was a note of panic in her voice.

"Would you like my honest assessment of your situation?"

"... Not really, no."

Emma smiled thinly. "Very well. I know exactly what's wrong with you, and fixing it will be easy."

"Great," Karen replied sarcastically.

"Xander, calm down," Kara said. "We'll figure this out, we just have to..."

"Calm down?" Karen all but shrieked, interrupting Kara. "CALM DOWN? I'M RANDOMLY LOSING CONTROL OF MY BODY, HALF THE TEAM HATES ME NOW, AND YOU WANT ME..." her sentence ended abruptly as Kara suddenly found herself in control of her body again, experiencing the full effects of her body's emotional, adrenal spike. She took deep, regular breaths and counted to ten.

Xander fell back into control of a significantly calmed body. "Damnit," she muttered.

"My body, Xander," Kara said.

"What?"

"It's my body, not yours." She looked to Emma. "Is there anything you can do?"

Emma Frost raised an eyebrow. "Is there anything you want me to do?" she asked.

Kara sighed. "... We... I don't know. If we could find a way to return Xander to his real body somehow, or maybe clone a body for him..."

Karen blinked. "... wait, you can do that?"

"I can do that," said a voice from behind Karen. Her adrenaline spiked. She jumped, whirled, stared.

Stephen Strange stood in the doorway of Emma Frost's office, leaning against his staff.

"Hello, Stephen," Emma said, her tone a cordial one. "Thank you for agreeing to meet with me on such short notice."

Doctor Strange nodded, glancing towards Karen for a moment as he spoke. "Karen Starr has made friends since she arrived in this dimension. It appears she is lucky to count Benjamin Grimm amongst them."

Karen stared for a moment, not sure what to make of that. Ben had something to do with Mr. Strange being here? And Emma had sent for him? Or asked Ben to? Doctor Strange knew she and Kara weren't the same person? … Was that good or bad? She exchanged glances with Kara before looking nervously towards the good doctor. "... Er. Hi." She looked Emma's way questioningly.

"He knows, Xander," Emma said.

Karen - Xander - let out a sigh, and a good half of it was relief. "OK. OK. I can deal. Look at me dealing." She turned to Doctor Strange. "How much do you know?"

"A good portion," Stephen replied, shutting the door carefully behind him before walking across the room to have a seat in front of Emma's desk, leaving the other chair for Xander. "But I'd like to hear it in your own words, if you don't mind."

Xander sat down. "... Right." And she told him. Told him about **his** life in Sunnydale. The Hellmouth. The Slayer. Vampires. Demons. His bet with Cordelia. The costume from 'Ethan's Costume Shop' that she'd made him wear. How that costume had come from a character whose comic he'd actually liked and read. Doctor Strange interrupted only twice to ask clarifying questions: first about the Hellmouth, and second about Ethan's costume shop. And then Xander told him about arriving here. A bright light, and then she was falling from the sky above Manhattan.

Kara went next, describing her life, her friends. Terra. Her position as chairperson of the Justice Society of America. Her company, Starrware Industries. The events that had led up to her trip to the antarctic. Finding the underground facility. The fight with Divine. The tear in the world that swallowed them both. And then...

"I woke up in Sunnydale."

Xander's eyes widened. "You WHAT?"

Kara looked away.

"And you waited till now to tell me, why exactly?"

Kara didn't meet Xander's gaze. "At first because I didn't know you. Or anything about you. Or even that you had any connection to the place that I woke up."

"And later?"

"I'm sorry, Xander," Kara said. "I should have told you."

Xander's glare did not fade in the slightest.

Doctor Strange gestured for her to go on. She did.

"I was surrounded by child-sized monsters, and they attacked, but I managed to defeat them without seriously injuring any of them. Then I went up into the air to see what I could..." she trailed off, and then tried again: "I could hear... Rao, it seemed like the entire town was screaming for help. I started rescuing people. Getting them out of harm's way. There was an incorporeal girl with red-hair who said that everyone had been turned into their costumes." She smiled faintly. "She was surprised to see me. I guess I know why she was so amused, now..." A pause. "She helped. Gathered up allies. Rescued one girl named Buffy who'd gone as a noblewoman, and another named Cordelia, who hadn't turned into her costume." Kara looked Xander's way. "Her name was Willow."

Despite her anger, Xander smiled fondly at that. "That's my Will," she murmured.

"Rupert Giles was the one who figured it out. That the costumes were the key. Something about Ethan worshiping a god named Janus. I don't know what he did to undo it. He'd said I would end up back home when the spell ended. But one minute I was using my heat vision to fry a whole mess of vampires, the next... I don't know. I think I dreamed for a while. Then I woke up outside that homeless shelter." She looked to Doctor Strange. "Does that help you, Doctor?"

Strange nodded. "I believe it does. At the very least, it gives me a place to start. Janus..." he trailed off, looking thoughtful. "I am a busy man, Mr. Harris. My position does not leave me very much free time, but I will return when I have found something." He rose to his feet. "Mr. Harris. Miss Zor-L." He looked to Emma. "Ms. Frost." Without waiting for anything that might be interpreted as permission, he vanished in a swirl of smoke.

Silence descended in the office.

"... He seemed nice," Kara said.

Silence continued. And then Emma spoke up. "If there's nothing else, Miss Starr, I'd like my office back."

And as quickly as that, Xander became Karen once more, and she flushed, and rose to her feet, and walked out of the office, her cheeks burning.

* * *

><p>The day turned out a long, warm, lazy summer day. A day for napping in the shade. A day for afternoon picnics in the park. A day for children, tree-forts, and adventures while adults fanned themselves in the shade of a back porch, with the promise of ice-cold lemonade flavored with sugar and nostalgia in equal parts. Naturally, Karen spent it trudging off by herself into the hedge maze on the grounds of the Xavier estate, trying to avoid everyone she knew: herself most of all.<p>

Things were finally settling down into something resembling normality at the school. The X-Men had circled the wagons, calling in their people from across the world. They were even going to start classes for the remaining students. A schedule had been posted. Workshops with various faculty. Meetings with advisors.

Kara hadn't made herself known since the meeting in Emma's office, and Karen figured it was just as well; she didn't particularly want to hear from the girl at the moment. So she walked, wandering through the maze. She could have flown, but that would have defeated the purpose: Karen wanted to be lost, and for a while, she was. It was... nice. The air was close in here, but not unpleasantly so. It smelled of grass, and of earth, and of growing things. She could hear birdsong drifting in from far away, and she smiled.

She rounded a corner and came to the center of the maze. To her great disappointment, she was not alone: Noriko and David had apparently decided to take advantage of the day, and were seated on a bench on the far side of the center clearing, Noriko resting contentedly in his arms, their clothing mussed. David saw her first, and looked up. When he tensed, Nori noticed as well, and rose to her feet, looking embarrassed. "Oh," she said. "Uh... hey, Karen."

"... Hey," Karen said, feeling awkward.

David was on his feet, then, and now he was embarrassed as well. "I'd better get back," he said. "I have a project I'm working on for Professor McCoy."

"I'll go with you," Nori said, but David gave her a look, and then she sighed. "Fine."

He headed off through the maze.

"I'm guessing you've got one of those 'I don't want to talk to you but I want to talk to you' situations," Karen said.

Nori smiled a ghost of a smile. "That obvious, huh?"

Karen shrugged.

"... the conversation last night ended badly," Nori began.

Karen folded her arms under her breasts, body language closed off.

"You have to know that we've got your back, Karen. Hell, we came to rescue you, didn't we?"

"Did I need rescuing?" Karen asked.

Nori gave Karen a look. "Sure, make this difficult, why don't you? … I... Julian did have a point, though. If you tell him I said that, I'll deny it, but he did. We've had alien team members before. Why **did** you lie?"

"What, like you've proven yourself to be able to keep a secret?" Karen asked, her tone angry - angrier than Nori expected, from her sudden defensive posture.

"What? When have I ever told one of your secrets?"

"Are you serious? People STILL sing that stupid John Denver song at me when they see me, little miss," she did a mocking imitation of Nori's voice, "'her power is totally to orgasm whenever she's exposed to sunlight!' You see why there might be some trust issues here?"

Noriko looked pained. "... Yeah... about that..."

Karen waited.

"I'm really sor..."

"Well, well," came a new voice - a harsh, male voice - from the far side of the clearing. "What have we here?"

"Looks like a pair of X-brats wandering a little far from home," said a second. Karen and Noriko turned. Toad and Erg stood at the far entrance to the clearing, each looking enormously pleased with himself.

"You want something, Goggles?" Karen asked, an eyebrow raised.

Toad smirked. "Maybe I do," he said, moving forward. "Maybe I want to teach a pair of X-brats that they aren't the be all end all."

"Fucking over-privileged X-bitches," Erg muttered.

"Yes, that too," Toad agreed. He returned his attention to the two girls. "Or maybe I just want to appreciate the sight of two extremely attractive young bitches," he said. He was about to go on with another menacing statement.

"Try the pound," Karen quipped, interrupting whatever he'd been about to say. Noriko didn't quite laugh at that, but she came close.

"Funny." Toad said. "Maybe not so funny after we've beaten that pretty face in."

"You really don't want to mess with us right now," Noriko said.

"I don't know," Erg said, "I think we might." He raised his eyepatch, sending a brilliant blast of lightning at the pair.

Noriko sidestepped, moving faster than she had any right to. Karen took the lightning on the chin, and if it hurt her, she made no sign of it. Nori dodged a second blast, and returned one of her own.

Toad leaped into the air, his tongue lashing out lightning quick towards Karen. It wrapped around her neck, acidic saliva dripping its way down it, reddening her skin slightly. He used his tongue to reel himself in towards her.

Without thinking, Karen punched him in the stomach.

… her fist came out the other side.

Erg and Noriko stopped in their tracks, staring as Toad's tongue went slack and he collapsed to the ground in a heap, bleeding out.

Dying.

Karen staggered backwards, her arm sheathed in blood, a sick horror rising up from her belly. "... I... I didn't mean to..."

"You killed him!" Erg screamed. "You stupid bitch, you killed him!"

Karen shook her head in denial. "No... no... no, no, no..."

"Karen," Noriko said, "Karen, stay with me. You have to take him to Josh! He can help, but you have to take him right now!"

Karen's gaze cleared. "I... right." She scooped him up. "Josh," she muttered. One moment she was there. The next, not. A sonic boom erupted into the heart of the hedge-maze. Toad was bleeding out. A trail of little droplets followed her path as she blazed a trail through the mansion, shattering several windows, breaking through three doors before she finally found the target of her search: Josh Foley.

He was in the cafeteria. A dozen other students were present. His eyes widened in shock as she blurred into the space in front of him and abruptly stopped, carrying the dying mutant.

"Please," Karen said. "Can you save him?" There was a note of desperation in her voice. That awful, bubbling dread was growing.

Josh stepped forward. "I can," he said. "I can. You got him to me in time." And with those words, Karen felt the weight of dread lift from her shoulders. Josh placed his hands on Toad's chest, and the horrific hole in his stomach began to close. When it was gone, he stepped back.

The doors swung open, and Scott Summers rushed in with the newly arrived Ororo Munroe only a few steps behind. They came upon Karen, covered in blood, holding the equally bloody if unconscious Mortimer Toynbee, and a huge pool of blood on the floor around them, surrounded by students.

"Toad?" Ororo asked, surprised at his presence.

Scott was not amused. "What, exactly, is going on here?" he said.

Dead silence.

Scott assessed the situation, took in every detail. Made his decision."Take him to medical," he said. "And then meet me in my office. NOW, Miss Starr."

Karen did as she was told. "... I'm pretty sure I said I was done being the universe's butt-monkey," she muttered as she left the cafeteria.

The universe did not reply.

* * *

><p>Karen shut the door behind her as she left Scott Summers' office, feeling completely humiliated. He had not been sparing in his criticism of what he saw, perhaps rightly, as an out of control student, and he had explained in detail exactly how she was failing to live up to the very high expectations that they had of her. She'd been so much in shock over what happened that she'd done little more than sit there and take it. Now, as she left the office, she scrubbed at her eyes, trying to force away her tears before they could happen.<p>

She wasn't going to cry, damnit.

She was still covered in blood. She desperately needed a shower. She made her way up towards her room.

Ten minutes later, Karen, clean again if not happy, collapsed onto her reinforced, oversized bed, and was lost to the world.

She didn't know how much later it was - hours, maybe - when a knock came at the door, startling her back into the world of awareness. She didn't respond to it.

Presently, the door opened, and the Stepford Cuckoos filed into the room.

"I'm really not in the mood for visitors right now," Karen muttered.

"Good," Irma replied. "Because we're not here to visit. We're here to offer you a way to control your powers."

Karen blinked. "... What?"

"It's simple," Phoebe said. "Kara knows how to control her powers. You don't. Not really. So we take that knowledge, and we copy it into your mind."

There was a long silence as that idea sank in. "... You can do that?" Karen asked incredulously.

"Not quite as easily as snapping our fingers," Irma said, "but yes, we can do that." The other two nodded in agreement.

Karen looked down. "... I guess people are talking, huh?"

Irma sat down next to Karen, put a hand on her shoulder. "You're not the first person to suffer from power-incontinence, Xander," she said gently.

Karen blinked. And then her eyes widened. And then she blushed deeply. "... do we really have to call it that?"

Irma rolled her eyes. "Do you want us to do this or not?"

"There's more to it than that," Kara said, appearing suddenly next to Celeste.

Karen gave Kara a sour look, not being particularly pleased to see her.

"Emma and I talked about this as an option," Kara went on. "It's not as simple as a copy/paste. A part of your mind would be overwritten by a part of mine. A small part, but still a part. We've got no way of knowing how it would affect you."

"You saw what happened today, didn't you?" Celeste asked.

Kara nodded. "... I saw."

"And?"

Kara looked away.

"Great," Karen said. "So the big decision comes down to the donut boy." Everyone looked at her. "... girl," she conceded. A pause. "... Let's just do this, OK? What do I have to do?"

"Take my hand," Irma said.

Karen looked at her, then. Really looked at her. Irma blushed beneath her stare. Karen took her hand.

"Open your mind, Xander," Irma murmured, leaning in close. "You're going to feel something a little weird. Try not to overreact." Almost immediately, there was the strangest sense of something... wriggling... in her thoughts. A presence joined her mind.

Irma. Celeste. Phoebe. They were in her thoughts, and they were...

_ Beautiful._

"All done," Irma announced suddenly.

Karen frowned. "I don't feel any different."

"Good," Kara said. "Let's hope that continues."

"Let's hope," Irma echoed with a smile. The girls rose to their feet, then. "Try something," Celeste said.

"Er... like what?"

Phoebe shrugged. "Hit the table. Don't break it."

Karen looked to the coffee table, then to her fist. She drew it back reluctantly, and then, after taking a deep breath, struck the table palm first. The slap of her palm impacting with the table rang loud in the room, but that was all.

Karen cried a little, and rubbed her eyes. "Thank you," she said, and meant it.

Irma brushed a tear from Karen's cheek. "Any time," she murmured.

And then the three girls were leaving. And the door shut behind them with a click.

Karen sat there for a good ten minutes, overwhelmed, nervous, afraid that maybe there would be consequences to this, but mostly just relieved. Then the sound of laughter from down the hall drew her out of her reverie. Kara was gone again. Gone to wherever she went when she wasn't talking. Probably just watching behind the eyes.

She stood up. Went to investigate. Left her room behind, wiping her eyes once more as she did so. The sound of voices was coming from... she wasn't sure what room that was, but it wasn't a dorm. She opened the door.

"Brava, David," Julian said loudly to general laughter as Karen walked into the dormitory level's sitting room on the dormitory level. "Brava."

Karen felt a stab of shame before she realized that the intended insult hadn't been directed at her; Julian, Cessily, David, and Laurie were gathered around a smooth wooden table playing a board game that Karen wasn't familiar with, and whatever David had just done, it had not been to Julian's advantage at all.

"It's funny because it's humiliating to be a woman," Cessily deadpanned.

"That's not exactly what I meant..." Julian tried to backpedal, provoking further laughter.

"So he just insulted all three of us," Laurie said, though she was smiling.

"Hey, it's totally insulting to have your gender misidentified!" Julian protested.

"Keep digging, Julian," David replied, shaking his head in bemusement. He noticed Karen, then. "Hey Karen," he called. "Want to join us?"

"Karen," Laurie echoed, smiling warmly at the sight of her, "Join in!"

Karen thought about it, thought about all the problems she'd had today, all the stress, all the bad feelings. All the times she'd lost her temper, or had someone angry at her in turn. The incident with Toad. Her terror that she might have killed someone - even a bully. The Cuckoos. Everything. And despite the unintentional embarrassment their banter had brought her, her fears that she'd alienated her new friends evaporated, and for a moment, the weight of her mistakes was lifted from her shoulders. She grinned. "Yeah," she said, "That'd be great."

She pulled up a chair and sat down, and the game - and the laughter and the camaraderie it brought with it - went on well into the evening.

* * *

><p>Hope burns eternal in the human breast. So too in the Kryptonian's. The following morning found Divine, almost in spite of herself, floating in the air a few hundred feet above the address she'd been given in Stamford, Connecticut, watching. She'd sworn that she didn't need help. Didn't need anyone but Max.<p>

The entire day spent in fruitless search, and most of the night. She hadn't even realized she'd arrived in Stamford until she was nearly upon the address she'd been given. And now, watching the four people in the home below, she was afraid to go in. Not because she thought they might be able to harm her.

She was afraid. And she hoped.

The descent to the front porch took more courage than she'd ever mustered in her short life. The sound of voices within. Friendly banter. She felt a sudden, awful sense of longing for... she wasn't sure what.

She knocked on the door.

The friendly voices ceased as if they had never been there.

She watched with her x-ray vision as the four occupants put on costumes and otherwise got into position.

Divine knocked again.

At last, a woman's voice called out, "Who is it?"

"I was told to come here," Divine said, her voice uncertain.

"Who told you?"

She held up the business card where it could be seen from the door's peephole.

A moment later, the door unlocked, then opened.

Then she was inside. Then she was recognized. "Hey," the guy with purple hair said, "You're that chick from the news."

"My name is Divine."

Silence. Then the man with the long white hair nodded. "Nitro," he said.

"Speedfreek," said the purple-haired man.

"Coldheart," said the woman who had spoken initially, even as she sheathed a pair of glowing swords.

"Cobalt Man," said the armored figure.

Divine smiled. "I'm happy to meet you all. I'm here for the meeting."

They seemed to know what that meant, each nodding in turn.

"Welcome to the club," Coldheart said, and smiled.

It wasn't Max. But it would do. For now.

**End Chapter 09**


	10. What We've Got Here

"OK, how many super villains are we talking, Speedball?"

Namorita crouched in the bushes with the other New Warriors and their camera crew, observing the people moving about in the house. Nice place. Suburban neighborhood. Warm day. A little too warm for her tastes. It'd been hours since she'd been submerged in water.

"Three," Speedball said, his blonde hair flowing in the faux-wind created by his kinetic field. "No, wait. I think I see Coldheart in the backyard taking out the trash. That's four total, and all four are on the FBI's most-wanted list, right?"

Microbe and Night Thrasher were on either side of her. Good friends.

The voice of the producer for their reality show at the MRVL Network spoke in her earpiece. "Cobalt Man, Coldheart, Speedfreek, Nitro... yep, they all broke out of Ryker's three months back, and all of them have records as long as your arm. Coldheart fought Spider-Man a couple of times and - get this - Speedfreek almost took down the Hulk."

Namorita felt a thrill of fear at that. Seriously? Night Thrasher gave voice to her thoughts a moment later: "He what?"

"These guys are totally out of our league, man," Microbe said. "No way we should be going in there."

Speedball grinned. "But think about the **ratings,** Microbe. This could be the best episode of the entire second season. Six months we've been driving around the midwest looking for goofballs to fight, and the best we've managed so far was a bum with a spray can and a wooden leg. This could be the episode that really puts New Warriors on the map, dude. We beat these guys and people stop bitching about Nova leaving the show to go back into space."

Namorita nodded. That made sense. "So what's the plan?" she asked.

Speedball shot her a harsh look. "The plan is you spend five more minutes in makeup, Namorita. You think people wanna see that great big ugly zit on your chin?"

Her cheeks burned, and in that moment, utterly humiliated in front of the camera, Namorita hated Speedball just a little. The makeup people went to work on her chin.

"OK, now we..."

"Uh oh," Night Thrasher said, cutting Speedball short. "We've been marked."

Coldheart had spotted them. She raced into the house. "Everyone in costume!" she shouted, "It's a raid!"

"GO!" Speedball yelled. And they went. Speedball flung himself through the window, catching Speedfreek totally off guard, tackling him, taking him through the wall and into the front yard in a spray of debris. "I'd heard that clothes make the man, Speedfreek," he said, clearly posing for the camera as he delivered a powerful blow to the purple-haired man's jaw, "and in your case it's TOTALLY TRUE!"

Namorita and Night Thrasher ganged up on Coldheart, and Coldheart was not amused. Funny how she didn't look particularly villainous in her jogging outfit. Then she brought out her glowing swords, and Namorita reluctantly conceded that perhaps she was a credible threat after all.

"Wait a minute," Coldheart said, eyes narrowing suspiciously, "I know you guys. You're those idiots from that reality show! I'm not getting taken down by Goldfish-Girl and the Bondage Queen."

Namorita slipped inside her defenses and clocked her one, which made an opening for Night Thrasher: a kick to Coldheart's midsection sent her tumbling, swords falling from her grasp. "Can we cut the part where she called me the Bondage Queen?" Night Thrasher whined.

"Oh, yeah," Microbe replied from where he had just dealt with Cobalt-Man, "Because Night Thrasher sounds so much straigh..." He was cut off by Speedball's sudden appearance, coming flying out backwards through the house at high speed, sending out another spray of debris. He hit a tree and bounced off it with equal velocity.

"You think you can beat me with kinetic force?" he yelled as he flew back at whatever had hit him.

A gorgeous, stacked, black haired white girl flew through the hole Speedball had left in the house when he'd gone through and spiked him into the ground with a blow that would have pulped a normal human. Not Speedball. He bounced, soaring into the the air a thousand feet straight up before he started to come back down.

"...the hell is that?" Night Thrasher asked.

Namorita recognized her. The girl had been on the news a week back. She'd fought the X-Men and this weird pink robot thing to a standstill. "Everyone, get back! Get the hell back! She's out of our..."

"You think you can come here and hurt MY friends?" the girl all but shrieked.

"Divine..." Coldheart said, staring at the girl. "Get 'em!"

Namorita charged, flying at Divine. "Get clear!" she shouted, hoping to buy time for her team. Divine seized her by the wrist, pivoted, and threw her through the wooden fence that separated the yard from the next one over. Namorita had a brief impression of oncoming blue before she splashed down in a swimming pool. That was lucky! Now she'd be charged up. No way could this bitch take her charged up.

Namorita flew up out of the water and over the broken fence just in time to see Divine take a blow to the face from one of Night Thrasher's escrima sticks. He cried out in pain and dropped the stick. She was descending, about to punt the bitch away from her teammates.

Divine ducked under her kick, and Namorita plowed a trench from one side of the yard to the other. Then the Kryptonian caught a blast of pepper-spray to the face from Night Thrasher, and though she had gotten her hands up in time, she still screamed in agony. Namorita had only just recovered from her missed attack when Divine moved forward almost faster than even she could perceive, rip off Night Thrasher's leg as if his armor wasn't even there, and then throw the bloody limb at Microbe. Microbe screamed in horror, and frantically gestured, trying to force the germs in Divine's body to overwhelm her.

Namorita delivered a one-two full strength combo straight into Divine's midsection, sent her plowing back into the house, which collapsed on top of her with an awful roar.

Speedball landed. "FUCK!" he shouted.

Night Thrasher moaned, clutching at the bloody stump that was still spurting blood. "Oh, shit, oh shit, my leg... oh god..."

"We need to get paramedics here RIGHT FUCKING NOW," Speedball yelled, and the call went out.

Then the rubble shifted. All eyes went to it. "... oh hell," Namorita muttered, followed by a few choice curses in Atlantean.

Divine burst free from the wreckage of the collapsed house. "You stupid bastards," she said. "You're all gonna die here."

Microbe ran for it. Divine picked up a fallen brick and threw it at the back of his head with godlike force. There was a sick crack, and Microbe collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Speedball zoomed forward, his kinetic field charged with every impact he'd taken thus far, and channeling all of that into a blow he was sure would crush this enemy. She was ready for his blow: she took it on the chin, and though the blow blasted her backwards, she did not lose her footing. "Immune to kinetic impact, huh? Let's see how you do against heat." Her eyes flashed red, and she fired off a massive beam of coherent red light. Speedball vanished in the blast, and when it faded, all that was left was bits of ash floating in the wind.

"You bitch!" Namorita screamed. "You killed them! You evil bitch!"

"Are you going to run away like your friend?" Divine asked casually.

Namorita readied herself. She knew she couldn't win, but if she was going to die, she'd die like an Atlantean warrior. She moved, lunging forward, attempting to land a full strength blow to Divine's face.

She never got the chance. Divine sidestepped her attack and then hit her in the chest harder than she'd ever been hit in her life. She flew backwards, through the fence, across the street, and into the side of a school bus. Pain overwhelmed her. She was bleeding, and the cameras were still rolling, and...

The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness was one of the villains they'd come to stop - Nitro - sprinting away down the street.

* * *

><p>A New World in my View<p>

by P.H. Wise

A New X-Men Crossover Fanfic

Chapter 10: What We've Got Here

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby. This chapter contains dialogue taken from 'Civil War #1.' Marvel owns that, too.

* * *

><p><em>Stark Tower<br>New York City  
>12:03 PM<em>

"... to our viewing audience, we're just getting confirmation... but according to the Associated Press, there's been a disaster in Stamford, Connecticut... initial reports are indicating dozens killed or injured, and significant property damage including several private residences and an elementary school..."

Tony Stark looked up at the monitor, and a cold dread welled up inside his heart. He didn't know how or why, but he was sure this was going to be bad. It took him all of six seconds to bring up the news feed. Another two to scan the headlines already popping up across the internet.

"We're getting more," the anchor said. This was going out as soon as the network got the info. No fact checking. No analysis. No waiting. They were dumping raw information onto the airwaves. "The New Warriors... the superhero team and popular reality TV stars known as the New Warriors are involved somehow. We're trying to get a news chopper into the area..."

Other news sources weren't much better. 'STAMFORD DESTROYED! HEROES FEARED RESPONSIBLE!' read the headline on one site. 'NEW WARRIORS MURDERED BY X-MEN ALLY! REVEREND STRYKER EXONERATED!' another proclaimed. The next ten minutes were chaos in the news sources as they struggled to get the story straight, but it was time enough for Tony to cancel all his meetings for the day, then send out a call to his lawyer, another to S.H.I.E.L.D., and a third to Captain America, who had already seen it and sent out a call for the Avengers to assemble.

This was going to be bad. It was up to them to make sure it didn't get worse than it had to be.

* * *

><p><em>Xavier Institute for Higher Learning<br>North Salem, New York  
>12:34 PM<em>

Karen reveled in her newfound control of her abilities. Every restriction she'd ever had to worry about was now gone, and she was fully in command of her body, and it felt... glorious. She was on the basketball court with six other students: all of them against her. As Xander, she had never been the most physically adept, but now... she almost giggled as she dodged the green-skinned kid - Victor - and flew up to make another slam dunk. Her: 30. Them: 0. She had never felt so exhilarated. So...

"... she doesn't have to rub our noses in it..." Victor muttered to Alani, the tattooed redhead that he always seemed to be hanging out with. It was quiet enough that Karen would never have heard it if she hadn't had super senses, but as was...

Her sense of elation vanished like a popped soap bubble, and she sank down to ground level.

"Isn't she supposed to avoid direct sunlight?" came a voice from across the yard: Cessily had spotted her on the court. She was walking by with Noriko and David. "Seems like she's taking it in every chance she can get, now..."

Other conversations. Not related to her. Students worrying about the new school year. Students still in shock over what had happened not so long ago.

She met the eyes of the opposing team on the basketball court, some looking hurt, others looking annoyed, but none of them neutral. "... Sorry," she said.

Victor took the ball. "Not your fault, I guess. No offense, but I don't think it's fair for you to use your powers in this game."

Karen felt a stab of resentment, but she nodded. "Yeah." She headed off the court. A moment later, new teams were assigned, and the game continued. Without her.

'Karen, I need you in Mr. Summers' office as soon as possible.'

She jumped at the 'sound' of Emma Frost's mental voice in her head, looked around, realized what had happened, and headed off towards the main building, wondering what she'd done this time.

* * *

><p>"What." Karen couldn't quite process what she was being told. Once more that yawning chasm had opened up beneath her feet, and her brain needed a few moments to regain the cognitive faculties to put together a more articulate response.<p>

Scott Summers exchanged glances with Emma Frost. "I know you didn't ask for this, Karen, but your twin just murdered a team of super heroes."

"No," Karen said, her thoughts still moving sluggishly. "Go back to the part where there are superhero reality TV shows?"

Scott looked annoyed. "This isn't a joke. People are dead. Good people."

The chasm seemed to grow ever deeper. Karen could feel the blood racing through her veins. Could hear the heartbeats of Scott and Emma both. Could hear three voices, far away, crying for help, followed by the distant sound of a car crash. Super hearing. "I need to sit down," she said.

"You are," Scott replied.

"Oh. Good."

"We realize that this is something of a shock," Emma said, and Karen tried very hard not to giggle.

"Pull yourself together," Scott said. "We need you for this. We need you here, focused, 100%. Understand?"

Karen tried. And then Xander wasn't in the driver's seat anymore. Her body swayed, and then Kara took control, steadying it, and looking Emma in the eye. "She passed out," she said.

Scott looked at Emma questioningly.

Emma looked annoyed. "I had hoped..." she shook her head and looked to Scott. "Darling, I'm afraid I haven't been completely honest with you." Even as she spoke, Emma got a strange look on her face as she considered her boyfriend.

Scott looked entirely unsurprised. "Go on," he said.

"It's me, sir," Kara said. "My situation is a bit different from what you may have been led to believe." She waited a beat before continuing. "Karen and I..."

"Are two people sharing the same body," Scott finished.

Kara's eyes widened in surprise. "Wha-?"

"Give me a little credit here," Scott said. "Your mannerisms are noticeably different. You try, but you don't share the same speech pattern either. Karen slouches, and you don't. Karen is almost completely disorganized, you're markedly more so. I could go on."

Kara flushed red. "... Damn," she said. "Apparently, I suck at being secret identity girl even when my secret identity IS a completely different person."

Scott smirked.

"OK," Kara said. "Ms. Frost, I need you to keep Karen asleep until this is over. Only one of us can be running the body here, and I'm not sure if she can do what needs to be done. I hope she does, but if I'm wrong..."

Emma considered Kara for a moment, and then acquiesced. "Very well," she said.

"Hold on," Scott said. "As inconvenient as it may be, I'd like to get Karen's input on this. This affects her, and she doesn't strike me as the kind of person who takes well to having decisions made for her. You've already gone around her more than you should have. Let's avoid making things worse."

Kara's lips thinned. "Fine. But let's do it quickly."

Karen came back to awareness. "Oh... hell..." she muttered. And then saw Emma Frost leaning in over her. "GAH!" she yelped, and stumbled back.

"Welcome back," Kara said, her spectral form once more standing next to Karen once again.

"... I'm getting really sick of that," Karen muttered.

"You may wish we'd left you unconscious in another moment," Kara said. "Can you deal?"

Karen took a few deep breaths. "... OK," she said. "I can deal. What do we need to do?"

"An interview with CNN," Emma said.

Karen stared.

Scott glanced at Emma, then looked to Karen. "It doesn't have to be you that does it. It could just as easily be her." He gestured at Kara.

… Mr. Summers knew about Kara? Oh hell. Karen felt another surge of panic. "What?"

Emma looked faintly amused. "I am 'translating' telepathically between Scott and Kara. I felt it would help things go more smoothly if all parties involved in the conversation could, in fact, communicate."

"WHAT!"

"Calm down, Karen."

And just like that, Karen's rising panic vanished as if it had never been there. "... You did that, didn't you?" she asked, looking suspiciously at Emma.

Emma's amusement was now replaced by irritation. "Would you prefer I allow you to needlessly delay us with another panic attack? Be useful or begone, Karen. We have no time for your childishness."

Karen felt like she'd been slapped. A stab of bitterness went through her, and she clenched her teeth, but she nodded. "OK," she said, her tone icy, "What, exactly, is going on, and what, exactly, do I need to do?"

Emma's phone buzzed. She checked it and grimaced. "... Wonderful. Valerie Cooper is on her way up."

"What does that mean?" Karen asked.

"It means we need to act quickly," Emma replied.

"We realize that we're asking a lot of you, Karen," Scott said, "And if you can't or for any reason don't want to do the interview, you'd better tell us now."

"And you'll put Kara in charge and have her do it, right?" It was hard to hide the bitterness in her voice.

"Yes," Emma said bluntly.

"Maybe you should, then," Karen said. Bitter? Angry? Oh, yes. "Apparently, the only thing I'm good at are screwing things up, getting blamed for whatever the latest thing is that Kara's done, or having other people's problems dumped on my lap, right?"

"Karen, wait," Kara began. But Karen didn't wait. She zoomed out of the office and slammed the door behind her. … which had the side-effect of splintering the door.

Scott opened his mouth.

"Say it, and you're on the couch for a week," Emma said warningly.

Scott shut his mouth, and smirked.

* * *

><p>"They're counting on us, Xander," Kara said. "You can't just run away."<p>

Karen ignored Kara Zor-L, zooming down the long halls of the Xavier mansion.

"XANDER!" Kara shouted.

No response. Kara would have ground her teeth if she could control them to do so.

Karen stopped short at the door to her room: the door was closed, but Karen could see through that: the room was occupied. Noriko and David were...

Oh.

Karen kept going, wanting nothing so much as to scream at the top of her lungs. Not being able to go hide in her own room wasn't that big of a deal, but added to everything else...

"Karen?"

Karen looked up. Irma. Standing in front of the open door to the room she shared with her sisters, wearing a white tank top and blue jeans. "Irma, hey."

Irma smiled. "How did you know?"

Despite her unhappiness, Karen blushed, and Irma gave her a stern look.

"You can tell us apart by our NAVELS?" Irma asked, sounding mock-scandalized by the idea. "… Xander Harris, are you looking at me through my clothes?"

"No," Karen lied.

"Liar," Irma said, though now she seemed amused.

"... I'm only human," Karen said.

"Again with the lying," Irma replied, and Karen blushed so deeply that it reached her ears.

Irma looked Karen in the eye, and whatever she found there, it inspired a look of sympathy. "... Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.

Karen sighed. "If you promise that by 'talk' you don't mean 'reprogram my brain with your telepathic powers.'" she said.

"I'll see what I can do," Irma said.

"... Good enough."

Karen stepped into the room, and Irma shut the door behind her.

* * *

><p>Namorita woke up, and for one blinding moment, all she knew was pain. She tried to scream, but she had no breath. Something was in her mouth. Something was going down her throat. Her eyes shot open. She couldn't move. Where was Divine? Was she still...<p>

"Peace, cousin." It was Namor's voice. The rising panic was snuffed out. "You have been grievously wounded, but you are in the hands of healers."

She turned her head, and she realized suddenly that she was lying on a hospital bed submerged in a low set gleaming silver tank not four feet tall and filled with water. The sounds of Atlantean chants mingled with the regular beep of her vital signs from the human machines. It was water. She had woken up and tried to breathe the air, and water had gone into her lungs. Not really that big of a deal for her. "...how... long?" she asked. Or tried to. All that came out was a gurgle, and not because of the water.

He must have guessed her meaning. "Hours," Namor replied. "Rest now. There will be time enough for questions when you are healed."

With a shuddering sigh, and still nearly crippled by pain, Namorita sank back into the comforting depths of unconsciousness.

* * *

><p>"How is she?" Reed Richards asked. He and Sue had come to the hospital as soon as they'd heard. … apparently, Namor had as well, and when they arrived, the King of Atlantis was already engaged in a loud argument with the hospital staff. But now, all of that was settled. Now, Namorita Prentiss was being treated by her own.<p>

"She will live," Namor replied.

"More than can be said for her team-mates," Sue said, and Namor nodded.

Namor met Reed's gaze. "I understand there are tapes."

"The film crew escaped more or less unharmed."

"A record of the attack," Namor continued, "and of the woman who dared to strike down Atlantean royalty."

"Namor, the Avengers will handle..."

"We take care of our own, Doctor Richards," Namor said, his voice cold, "And we do not allow the attempted murder of our royal family to go unanswered. Show me the tape."

Reed exchanged glances with his wife, and then sighed. "...Fine," he said. "Come to the Baxter building in an hour. I'll have it ready for you then."

Namor nodded. "... thank you, Doctor Richards."

Reed looked towards the grievously wounded yet healing girl in the water, and his heart sank. Tony was right: this was going to get worse before it got better.

* * *

><p>"Am I the Zeppo?" Karen asked.<p>

Irma raised an eyebrow. "Zeppo?"

"Right. Er..."

"Tell me what happened, Xander."

Karen shook her head. "I... look, all I've done since I got here was cause trouble, get stuck with other people's messes, and take a back seat to..." she trailed off, then tried again, "Back home, my best friends are heroes. Buffy's the Slayer, and Willow's... useful. She's like super-smart hacker girl, and she's even helped Giles with spells a couple of times. I'm the guy who gets kidnapped by sexy preying mantis ladies or stuck with Inca mummy girls who want to suck out my..." Karen suddenly became aware of the look Irma was giving her, and flushed, "life... force... and you have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"

Irma shook her head. "I can dig through your memories if you want. But I won't unless you give me permission. I'm not Emma."

Karen smiled faintly at that. "Good to know."

"I understand, though. You think more is being asked of you than you can give. You think you're a side-kick, not a hero."

Karen nodded. "I'm doughnut guy. I bring sugary goodness to the research party. I'm not... what you said."

"You're wrong," Irma said.

Karen blinked. "... I'm wrong. Right." A beat passed. "How am I wrong?"

Irma smiled. "You're a hero, Xander. I don't know what you did or didn't do in the world you came from, but I do know what you've done in this one."

"You sure you're not mixing me up with Kara? She's Power Girl. Last survivor of a dead universe, and all that jazz? She's Roxy Hart. I'm the Hungarian woman who gets hanged."

"Didn't Roxy Hart murder the man she was having an affair with and then set up an elaborate lie about her own pregnancy in order to get off scott free?"

Karen frowned. "... right. Bad metaphor. OK, she's... she's Batman, and I'm Alfred at best. She's..."

"Xander, when that sniper took his shot at Laurie Collins, did you know you could survive the gunshot?"

"Well, no."

"Did you mean to step in front of the bullet?"

"I didn't WANT to, but it was either that or let her die, and..."

"Right," Irma said. "So the one time you were put to the test, a sniper had a bead drawn on your friend. You saw it. You knew you could get in the way. You knew it would probably save Laurie, and you had no way of knowing whether or not your powers were strong enough to allow you to survive, you stepped in the way of the bullet. Like it or not, Xander, you're a hero."

Karen stared at Irma for a moment, at a complete loss for words.

"... She's right, you know," Kara said.

Karen startled slightly, then relaxed, but said nothing.

"I've asked Emma NOT to turn you off," Kara said. "I'll do it if you refuse, but I want you to do the interview. I'll help you, but I want you to be the one answering the questions."

And now Karen stared at Kara, with Irma watching the exchange. "Why would you want that?" she asked, completely incredulous.

"Because you have it within you to be a hero. I believe in you, Xander."

And for the second time in as many minutes, Karen Starr AKA Xander Harris was at a complete loss for words.

* * *

><p>And here she was. About to do an interview with CNN. Karen had never been more nervous in her life. OK, that's a lie: she'd been more nervous when he'd been at the mercy of Preying Mantis Lady, waiting for Buffy to show for the big rescue. But aside from that, she'd never been more nervous in her life.<p>

Who the hell was she to be sitting down to do an interview with Piers Morgan?

Someone Power Girl believed in. Someone Irma believed in, too.

Karen held on to that thought, and it blazed like a torch inside her heart, filling her whole mind up with light.

They'd done her makeup. Did her hair as best they could, and even without the ability to cut it, it was amazing what you could do with hair product. She looked... like Power Girl. Kara was there with her. They'd prepared for this. Emma and Scott had quizzed them on potential responses. Karen had walked into the studio through a veritable horde of reporters who wanted to get commentary from her, from Emma, from Scott.

The studio lights were hot and bright. Piers Morgan was on the set. Emma and Scott were on the set, and they would be answering questions as well, even if the majority would be directed at her.

At her.

The clock counted down. 'I can do this,' Karen told herself.

"Damn right, you can," Kara replied.

3

2

1

Showtime.

_**End Chapter 10**_


	11. Storm Front

A New World in my View  
>by P.H. Wise<br>A New X-Men Crossover Fanfic

Chapter 11: Storm Front

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby.

* * *

><p>Showtime.<p>

"Yesterday," Piers said, "A young woman shocked the world when she murdered three of the four members of superhero team and reality television stars, 'The New Warriors.'" A clip played on the monitors, showing footage of the New Warriors during the better days of their reality show.

"But this was not the first time this young woman has been in the spotlight, even if only peripherally. It was only a few weeks ago that she and what appears to be her identical twin fought on opposite sides in the event which led up to Reverend William Stryker's 'journal-gate'." A second clip began, this one showing Divine fighting Nimrod fighting Power Girl and the New X-Men. This was followed by still shot shows Power Girl and Divine split screened in close up, showing them to be completely identical except for hair colour.

"Tonight we interview Power Girl, X-Man and apparent twin sister of the alleged murderer."

Piers Morgan turned towards his guest. "So, Karen Starr. It's not your real name, I take it?"

Karen shook her head. "No, it really isn't."

"Are you willing to share your real name with us here tonight?"

"Power Girl," she replied. "Karen Starr is the costume."

Piers raised an eyebrow. "Your parents called you Power Girl?"

Karen looked down. "That's... a long story."

"Perhaps you could tell us a little bit about yourself," Piers said.

"Well, I never knew my parents. Not really." Karen was growing uncomfortable. This was too close to the truth. Tony and Jessica Harris were strangers to her. Had always been strangers to her. Her mother a nervous wreck, her father a drunk. Her heart ached at the thought of them. It was funny. She'd been so angry for so long, but now, stuck in Kara's body, all she felt was sadness.

'Kara, you want to... field this one?'

"I'm with you, Xander," Kara whispered into her thoughts. "I can give you the words if you need me to."

She opened her eyes. "I guess you know by now that I'm not a mutant." Her lips quirked into a smile. "Not that there's anything wrong with that." In the background, Scott looked embarrassed by that comment. "I was born on the planet Krypton. My father was a scientist. He and his brother discovered that a disaster was coming, and they..." she trailed off. "They couldn't convince our government. I was just a baby. They saved me, but Krypton tore itself apart." She fell silent once more. "I spent years in stasis." It was weirdly easy, talking about Kara's life as if it were her own. It was funny - she could almost remember the virtual environment she'd grown up in. The virtual parents. Growing up with the knowledge that nobody she interacted with was real. She could almost feel what it had been like. "I grew up in a virtual environment. A simulation of home. I only reached Earth recently."

Piers nodded. "You seem remarkably well adapted to our culture," he commented.

Karen nodded. "Earth isn't exactly unknown in the galaxy. Didn't you guys get put under quarantine a few years back? … My parents did their research. Included plenty of what I'd need to know in the program."

"You don't mention your twin," Piers commented. "As our viewers have all heard by now, yesterday, your twin murdered three heroes and put a third in the hospital. Good people. People kids looked up to. Surely some mention of her should be made? What would you say to those kids now? Or to the families of the dead?"

"She's not my twin," Karen said. "She was created on Earth by a man named Maxwell Lord. I don't know why, but I doubt it involves puppies and kittens."

Piers looked surprised. "Maxwell Lord?" he asked.

"He's this guy who took my DNA and cloned me without my consent. Then he stuffed a bunch of fake memories in her head and sent her after me. It's this whole thing."

Piers looked shocked. "I see," he managed. "Considering the power she's displayed, if your world was advanced enough to send you here, is there... some sort of technology from your world that could contain her?"

Karen immediately thought of kryptonite. "There's this thing that's like the kryptonite to her Superman..." she trailed off a moment, realizing exactly what she'd just said, "And it is shaped, sir, like itself," she said, her embarrassment clear in her tone. "Can we edit that part out? … Right. There's this substance that would handle her, but it doesn't exist on this planet."

Piers seemed amused, but he remained professional. "I see. We're going to ask a few questions of your teachers at the Xavier Academy in a moment, but for now, I've got a few more questions for you, Ms. Starr. First, what has it been like for you as a non-mutant to study at the school for mutants, the grounds of which now house the largest single concentration of mutants in the world?"

"It'd be better if we didn't have that whole 'paranoia brigade' sitting on our front porch."

"You're referring to the forces deployed by the Office of National Emergency?"

Karen nodded. "Nothing like an armed military presence to add that special touch of awkward to your high school experience."

"Then you disagree with the policy of the Office of National Emergency?" Piers asked.

Karen gave him a look. "I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that rounding up a minority all in one place and putting armed guards out front is a thing which rarely leads to greater tolerance and understanding." She frowned. "What's your issue with mutants, anyways? You've got a world full of people with superpowers. Super heroes have been part of your society since, what, World War 2? And nobody's got a problem with the Avengers, nobody's out protesting against the Fantastic Four as being 'a danger to our kids,' and nobody who doesn't work for the Daily Bugle has a problem with Spider-Man. So I gotta wonder, what's going on here?"

Piers didn't have an answer.

Karen pressed on, "I mean, if I was genetically compatible with humanity, at that point in my life, and having kids? I'd be thrilled to have a mutant son or daughter. My kid could be the next superhero… grow up and be someone important. Instead, everyone treats them like they're diseased. And now they're all being shipped off to a little school with armed guards so they don't have to be seen or heard from except for when it's convenient. Sounds like a recipe for some really powerful, really bitter kids that are going to be looking forward to paying back that 'kindness' someday. Do you want more Magnetos or more Cyclopses? Or is that Cyclopsii?"

"Are you suggesting that the current batch of students consists of potential Magnetos?" Piers asked.

"Are you suggesting that you can justify oppression by the fact that people resent being oppressed?" Karen asked right back. "We can't stop now, we've already gone too far, we might as well keep right on doing it? Something like that?"

"Of course not." Piers shook his head. "... Just one more question for you, Ms. Starr."

"I'm all ears," Karen said.

"Do you have a message for the people of Earth?"

Karen gave Piers a dubious look. "A message?"

"Is there anything you'd like to tell us? Some wisdom from your culture? A quote from one of your famous philosophers, perhaps?"

"Er..." Karen tried to think of something. Wracked her brain for something better than the equivalent of 'have a nice summer.' 'We find, Buffy slays, we party?' Maybe not. She could feel the heat of the lights. Sweat dripped down the inside of her shirt. The moment stretched out. Suddenly, the whole world seemed to move in slow motion, and as she had when the assassin had fired upon Laurie, in the space between heartbeats, she had time to think.

… and then she knew. And she felt a deep, awful sadness. "You will travel far, my little one," she said, "but we will never leave you. Even in the face of our death. The richness of our lives shall be yours. All that I have, all that I've learned, everything I feel... all this, and more, I bequeath you, my daughter. You will carry us inside you all the days of your life. You will make my strength your own, and see my life through your eyes, as your life will be seen through mine. The daughter becomes the mother. The mother becomes the daughter. This is all I can send you."

"What was that?"

Karen looked up, and her voice cracked with not unfeigned emotion: she could REMEMBER these things, the variant spoken to Kara of the same words which Jor-El had spoken over Kal, and it shook her to the core. "The last words my mother ever spoke to me."

* * *

><p><em>Greenwich, Connecticut<em>

"Why are you running away?" Divine asked, staring at the fleeing form of Coldheart in civilian garb. The others were gone. Nitro. Speedfreek. Cobalt Man. They'd all run away. She'd followed. It was easy enough to track them. Well, to track the ones that weren't Nitro. He was being... difficult. But every time she showed herself to her friends, they'd fled her presence. Run away. Just like Coldheart was doing now.

The sun was warm but not uncomfortable. Divine stood on the sidewalk that ran along side a long plank-board fence. Power lines buzzed overhead, going from pole to pole. A narrow strip of grass was between the sidewalk and the busy street. Trees stood on the other side of the fence. The far side of the street was more open. More like a park. Trees and grass and paths and open sky.

Her friend was running away.

All at once, she was in front of Coldheart, and the woman stopped short. Divine could hear her heartbeat. See her heartbeat. See the blood surging through her veins. See the air filling her lungs with each breath. "I fought for you," she said. "I defended you when they came for you. Why... why did you all run away?"

Coldheart turned her back. Divine shot around her to face her once again.

"You killed a superhero team," Coldheart replied at last. "The law is going to come down, and it's going to come down hard. No offense, girl, but at your side is a hell of a dangerous place to be. I can't be seen with you, and I especially can't be seen TALKING to you, got it?"

Divine stared. "But..."

Frustration was evident in Coldheart's expression, and she finally snapped. "God," she said, "What are you, nine? What part of 'go to ground and wait for the heat to die down' do you not understand?"

"... but we're friends... aren't we?"

Coldheart grit her teeth. "Yes, we're friends. Sometimes, friends have to avoid each other for their own safety, understand?"

"No. … yes. I guess." Divine felt her heart sink. This time, when Coldheart walked away, she didn't follow.

Yesterday. Had it only been yesterday? She'd defended these people. No sign of the man who'd had her come to the safe house. She'd seen her own image being broadcast via radio-waves, along with people calling her a monster, calling her actions unprecedented, savage, debased. She'd only been defending her friends, hadn't she?

She wished that Max were here.

* * *

><p>"Well done, Karen," Scott said, and meant it. They hadn't said a word in the studio. Hadn't said anything on the walk back to the car. Only now, in the car, on the way back to the school, did either of them speak.<p>

Kara voiced her agreement a moment later. "You did good, Xander," she said.

"It was nothing," Karen replied, blushing from the compliment.

"You told the truth on national television," Scott went on. "That's not a thing that happens very often."

"Pundits are already twisting your words," Emma said. "They're trying to portray you as a sanctimonious brat who has no right to judge them. Perhaps one who has been 'dangerously influenced by powerful mutants'."

Karen felt a stab of anger. "I didn't mean it that way," she said.

"I know," Emma said. "And so will many of those who watch."

"But not all of them. Maybe not even most of them."

Scott glanced Karen's way, smiling faintly, "Welcome to our lives," he said.

"You can't control how other people are going to act," Kara said, "But you can control how you'll respond. You can choose to be the better person. Or you can choose to respond in kind."

Scott nodded in agreement.

"So," Emma said, raising an eyebrow, "You don't think that mutants should aspire to be like me, Miss Starr?"

Karen felt a moment of panic. "Urk..."

Emma's expression darkened.

"I... uh, with all due respect, I don't think the world could handle two of you, Miss Frost," Karen managed.

Scott grinned, and Emma held her displeased expression a moment longer before relaxing into an amused smile.

Karen watched in silence for half an hour after that as the car slowly made its way from New York city back towards the Xavier mansion. Traffic wasn't awful, but it wasn't great either. The going was slow, but not as slow as it might have been. Eventually, she shook her head. 'Emma?' she thought.

Emma glanced her way.

'Back in the studio, I...'

_*You experienced fragments of Kara's memories,* Emma's mental voice replied._

'Yeah.'

Kara looked down.

_*There was a reason why Kara and I decided not to broach the subject of copying the ability to control your powers from one mind to another.*_

'... so this is going to happen again?'

_*Probably. Particularly with memories that center around her learning how to control her powers. And there may be... bleed-over between those and your own memories. You've got fragments of Kara's memories inside you. Your mind will incorporate them into your own, eventually. Some through confabulation of new memories to resolve the dissonance. Some by writing over existing memories that are similar in nature.*_

'Can't you reverse it? Undo the damage somehow?'

_*The mind is a delicate thing. I can erase the memories, but I can't restore whatever it is they've overwritten. The process might damage you._

Karen shivered. '... If I don't do anything, will I still be me?'

_*Do you want to be?*_

Karen didn't have an answer for that at first. But Kara believed in her. And Irma believed in her. Resolution grew within her heart. 'Yeah,' she thought, 'I do.'

Emma smiled.

The car drove on.

* * *

><p>North Salem was beginning to recover. The riots were ended now, driven back by the forces of the Office of National Emergency, and the streets had been clear of protesters for days now. It was... better. Karen actually saw a few ordinary pedestrians as the car approached the mansion. The presence of an armed military force put a damper on any sense of homecoming she might have had, of course, but even so, she felt better once the car had pulled into the driveway. Better still after opening the door and spending a few moments standing in the moonlight. Emma and Scott went on ahead of her, soon disappearing into the mansion. The stars were bright, the moon brighter still, and she couldn't help but think of...<p>

"So, Irma, huh?" Kara asked.

Karen stumbled over the first step leading up to the mansion. 'What about her?' she thought.

"You're not really going to deny it to the girl whose head-space you're sharing, are you?"

Karen sighed. '... It doesn't matter. I'm a girl. She's a girl. There's no way she's a lesbian. I'm not that lucky.'

"It doesn't actually work that way," Kara replied. "Human sexuality, I mean. It's a spectrum, not two binary categories."

Karen was entirely unconvinced.

"OK," Kara said, "Think of it this way: she's a telepath. She probably knew before you did. If you haven't scared her off already, you probably aren't going to."

Karen frowned, and took a moment to brush her increasingly shaggy blonde hair out of her eyes: she really needed to find a way to get a haircut at some point. 'Was I that obvious?' she wondered. 'I hope I wasn't that obvious.'

"My body, remember? Anything you feel, I feel. It's kind of annoying, actually. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep track of which emotions are mine and which are yours when I'm the one who's feeling them either way?"

Karen giggled. 'So not only am I hijacking your body, I'm also making you feel your first lesbian crush?'

Kara blushed, and Karen's eyes widened in response. "OK, spill, Kara," Karen said aloud. A pair of O*N*E soldiers patrolling the school grounds glanced her way, and Karen switched back to mental communication. 'Was it... it can't have been Atlee? Isn't she jailbait?'

Kara's blush deepened. "She's eighteen," she said. "Almost nineteen. And I'm twenty five."

'Actually,' Karen mentally replied, 'Right now? You're seventeen.'

"And she's like a sister to me..." Kara protested.

Karen grinned. 'Oh, sure. Like a sister. Except for the whole wanting to jump her bones thing.' She could almost see it now: Power Girl, Atlee, kissing, fondling, clothes coming off, skin against skin, breasts pressing against...

"Hey, cut that out! I can feel that too, you know."

Karen gave Kara a look. 'I notice you're not actually denying anything.'

Kara would have ground her teeth had she been able to.

'It's funny, I never would have figured the writers would make the short haired, ripped, busty superheroine into a lesbian. Seems kind of like pandering. Not that I'm complaining.'

"Categories," Kara muttered. And then, "There aren't actually a group of writers dictating my life, Karen."

Laughing, Karen walked into the mansion, and the door shut behind her.

* * *

><p>Morning. The second day after Stamford. The Watchtower glittered in the morning sun like a great, black spider perched atop Stark Tower. From this place, The Sentry, Golden Guardian of Good, departed. To this place he returned. The man with the power of a million exploding suns stood atop the tower, listening to the world. He could hear... everything. A butterfly's heartbeat in Africa. The sound of a swarm of bees building its hive in an old Volkswagen's engine block in the parking lot at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. The battle cries of a band of pirates assaulting a cruise ship just west of the Philippines.<p>

"Twenty three seconds," CLOC - the AI who governed the Watchtower - announced.

He opened his eyes. Something about today seemed different. He could feel... a storm approaching. It had been gathering for some time. He was familiar with Complexity. The patterns in the randomness and chaos of complex systems. The butterfly effect was its most simplistic expression: a butterfly flaps its wings in China, and in Central Park there is rain instead of sunshine. This... was something more. Something vast. The very air felt oppressive. Claustrophobic. The whole Earth felt stuffy and close.

"Thirteen seconds," CLOC announced.

He was already gone by the time the last syllable reached the place where he had been standing only moments before.

Seven seconds later, the battlecries of the pirates off the coast of the Philippines turned to screams of terror as The Sentry blasted them into their component atoms. He felt no remorse for his actions. He might have, once. But he had learned not to be too good, too compassionate. The Void - his equal, his opposite, his other half - was gone, cast into the sun and destroyed, but it would be back. And when it returned, it would respond in kind for every good thing he had done in its absence. An act of depraved evil for every good. A death for every life saved. So he fought fire with fire. Overcame violence through greater violence. Perhaps the situation called for that response. But he no longer argued it with himself. There were times when he could not bring himself to get out of bed for fear of what the Void would do to balance the scales when it returned. But not today.

Six seconds later, he had bypassed a pregnant woman trapped in a burning car on the streets of Cairo in order to save a school bus full of screaming children in the process of plummeting into the ocean in southern Spain. Prioritize. Reassess. His were the responsibilities of a god, and he bore the weight of it easily, as one long accustomed to such a burden.

"Suicide bomber on the streets of Bagdad," CLOC announced, and The Sentry's super-senses focused in upon the man. "Twelve seconds until detonation."

He vanished from Spain, arriving just in time to kill the man in Bagdad before he could detonate, and then gone again just as quickly.

A storm was coming. The Sentry had work to do.

* * *

><p>Morning. Dappled sunlight filtered down through the leaves of the trees to where Divine walked along the banks of the Mianus River. Here, for two and a half miles along the river, was an escape from the harsh reality of this new world. An escape from a world in which she … lacked a purpose. It was beautiful. Oh, she could wipe it all out in the space of a second if she wanted, but listening to the sound of the river, and the wind in the trees, and feeling the dappled sunlight on her skin, watching the shadows shift all around in time to the breeze, she didn't want to. She felt... at peace.<p>

A tiny furry creature skittered down the tree, and she looked up at it, curious. What were those called again? Grey fur. White fur on the stomach. Long bushy tail. Big black eyes. Sort of like a rat, but not quite.

Divine let her eyes drift shut.

A tiny creature jumped onto her stomach. She opened her eyes. The furry thing The... squirrel. Right. These were called squirrels. It sat on her stomach now, looking at her interestedly.

"Hello, little thing," Divine said, reaching out to pet it.

It bit her finger. It didn't pierce the skin, but it surprised her. She batted the creature away, and it went flying out into the river.

A second squirrel - or was it the same one? - came out from behind the tree.

Divine sat up.

A third squirrel. A fourth. A fifth. A sixth. Then a dozen. Then two dozen. Then five dozen. Some brown, some grey.

"Okay," she said, "What gives?"

Every single one of them stared directly at her, large black eyes fixed upon her form. She began to grow uncomfortable. The sunlight didn't feel quite so warm anymore. "I don't have to take this from you!" she yelled, letting loose with a blast of heat vision that wiped out half of the swarm.

Twice as many squirrels popped out of the bushes to take their place.

They charged her. Hundreds of squirrels. Thousands. An all-consuming, suffocating mass of wriggling, awful, vicious, biting things. She tried to fly, but their weight bore her down. They were piercing her skin now, and she screamed in agony. She felt like she'd been exposed to kryptonite and then doused in molten rock. Agony upon agony upon agony, her screams rising ever higher, more and more squirrels, more and more of the little demons, and then the great vast bulk of them seemed to take on a humanoid shape. A woman with a squirrel's tail, brown hair, and a squirrel's buck teeth.

"YOU KILLED HIM!" the woman screamed, her cry shaking the Earth itself, knocking down trees, even. The riverbed cracked open and a great fountain of squirrels billowed up from underneath it to rise up into the air and blot out the sun. "YOU KILLED SPEEDBALL! NOW I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"

The squirrels descended.

Divine woke up with a scream rising in the back of her throat that she only barely repressed. She was still lying in the shade of the tree. Still at the riverbank. Oh God. She must have fallen asleep. She must have...

She rose to her feet, shivering despite the warmth of the day.

A squirrel looked down at her from the branch of the tree she'd been sleeping under. A quick blast of heat vision turned it to ash.

"Hate squirrels," she muttered.

* * *

><p>Morning. Morning, and the day was bright and glorious. Reverend William Stryker had been allowed to post bail, and it felt... good. Like the renewal of God's promise. His arm was still a stump, the legacy of his confrontation with the spawn of Satan, but he had been allowed to change clothes at last. To dress himself as befit his station as a man of the cloth. His suit was immaculate. His face clean shaven. His eyes filled with the conviction of one whose cause was just. The press were waiting for him at the entrance to the jail, and he smiled as the cameras began to flash.<p>

"Reverend Stryker, do you have any comment to make regarding the charges against you?" "Reverend, is it true? Did you really plot the assassination of mutant children?" "Reverend, do you have a statement to make?"

"At this time," he announced, and all fell silent, "I am prepared only to say that I am, and have ever been, God's servant. His will, not mine, be done. Thank you."

He continued down the steps to where the car waited for him. Everyone seemed to speak at once, but he paid them no more mind than an elephant would pay a speck of dust. The man waiting at his car opened the door for him, and closed it behind him after he'd gotten into the back seat.

It was good. Leather seats. Drinks - non-alchoholic, of course. Blessed air conditioning. And all the amenities of home.

"I'd ask what you were doing in my car," Stryker said, "But I suppose you were about to get to that." The car pulled away from the curb. Merged into city traffic.

The business-suit clad man seated across from him nodded. "I come bearing a message," he said. "A message from the Lord Most High."

Stryker raised an eyebrow. "Plenty of people think they hear the Lord. Most of them are crazy. I am not, but most are. Why should I believe you?"

The man picked up the oversized case which had lay next to his feet. He opened it, and turned it, revealing what lay within: the gauntlet. The severed arm of Nimrod. Stryker's own severed arm was no longer within, but he recognized the device when he saw it. And it was... restored. No longer damaged the way it had been when William had first found it.

William Stryker's eyes widened. "How? How did you get this?"

The man smiled. "The Lord works in mysterious ways. I have a task for you. A task which will bring about the final fall of mutantkind. Are amenable to the Lord's will?"

"I am His humble servant," Stryker replied.

* * *

><p>Morning. Morning, and for the first time since she'd arrived here, Karen allowed herself to hope that maybe, just maybe, she might be able to go home soon. "It'll be ready tomorrow?" she asked for the fifth time.<p>

Stephen Strange smiled patiently. "Tomorrow. The preparations for the ritual will take some time, but tomorrow, at noon, I believe I can open a portal to the place where your true body resides. I was unable to determine much about the location, save that it is still alive and intact, and the environment on the other side is survivable. Beyond that, I can not say."

"How will I, er, get back into it?" Karen asked.

Stephen produced a strange, clockwork device which would rest on the palm of the hand, with rings into which a thumb, index, and ring finger could be pressed. "This is... an artifact. It is very old, very valuable. It allows for the transfer, mind and soul, between one body and another."

"Won't that stick Kara back in my old body?" Karen asked.

"I have modified its function extensively. It will allow for a one way transfer: you to your old body. To activate it, press your hand into the hand of your old body." He looked Karen in the eye. "Do not put it on until you are ready to return to your original self. The magic is indiscriminate, and quite easy to trigger accidentally. All that is required is palm to palm contact."

Karen swallowed. "... Right. Ending up in the wrong body is bad."

Stephen nodded. "Indeed."

"Doctor Strange, I don't think I've had a chance to thank you for... everything."

Stephen smiled. "You are quite welcome. Now, if I'm not mistaken, you were to be returned before your morning classes began."

"Yeah. Those." Karen rose to her feet. To be honest, the last thing she cared about right now was classes. She wasn't going to have these powers for much longer, and the coursework she'd need to learn at Sunnydale High was way less advanced than what they'd had her studying here. All she really needed to do was figure out what she was going to tell the friends she'd made in this world.

...

Balls.

* * *

><p>Funny how life is. How the little things can affect the big things, and vice versa. Maria Hill had been pushing for the superhuman registration act for some time now. Stark had been fighting it. Captain America didn't like the idea, either. Maria saw its necessity. Then along came Stamford. If those kids in the New Warriors had been properly trained and supported, none of this would have happened. But since it had, she and her people had gone in and they'd pushed hard, and one day later, the superhero registration act was passed. The President had vetoed it. They'd expected that. Today, two days after Stamford, congress had overridden the presidential veto. It was law, due to take effect midnight tonight. She already had her capebuster units trained. She was on her way to have a little chat with Captain America about it. Or would have been, if things had gone differently.<p>

No sooner had the vote gone through than the ACLU had filed suit in partnership with the Fantastic Four to challenge the law in court. And then that damned activist, liberal judge had gone and ordered a stay on enforcement. Of all the possible outcomes, this one was the one she hadn't planned for. The court was due to hear the case sometime in March. In MARCH. It was September, and they weren't even going to hear the case until fucking March. Legal limbo.

Maria found herself grinding her teeth. So it was that when an anonymous tip came through claiming that Divine had been sighted in Greenwich, she hadn't particularly felt like sharing the information with the Avengers. "Deploy the capebusters," she ordered. "We're going to take this bitch down, and we're going to take her down hard."

It was a mistake. One she never should have made. She saw that later. When it was too late.

They knew what they were going into. Or they thought they did. Maria had seen to it that the briefing on the powers and abilities of Kryptonians was made available to the men planning the strike. Agents were on the ground in search of the target. When they gave the signal, the strike teams would move in. Supposedly, Divine had a high degree of invulnerability. Tranq darts tipped with adamantium were issued. Flight packs. Plasma rifles. Heat-resistant armor. Two humvees equipped with the Active Denial System. Multiple snipers equipped with M107 .50 caliber long range sniper rifles packing two adamantium slugs a piece plus more conventional depleted uranium ammunition. Everything was ready.

In the helicarrier's CIC, a voice announced that the target had been sighted on the grounds of a state park north of Greenwich. In Stamford, no less, on the opposite side of town from where she'd killed the New Warriors, but in the same fucking town.

She gave the order.

'Incoming transmission,' the wall display read. A moment later, Tony Stark's face appeared on the screen. "Maria, what are you doing?"

"My job," she replied.

"You'll never bring down a fully powered Kryptonian, Maria. Did you read the briefing I sent over?"

"I read it. We've taken adequate precautions."

"Damnit, don't DO this. I'm assembling the Avengers. We'll be on our way as soon as they're all here, but you need either psychic or magical support for this..."

"We don't need the help of superpowered beings to do our jobs," Maria said. "We've got the tools, we've got the technology, and we've got the manpower. When this is over, you'll be congratulating me." Before he had a chance to reply, Maria terminated the connection.

The banks of the Mianus River became a living hell.

* * *

><p>Sergeant James Johnson led his squad in from the air, making full use of the S.H.I.E.L.D. issued flight packs. The target had been sighted below, her location pinged on everyone's HUD. Divine was below, walking along the banks of the Mianus. Wading in it. Up to her ankles.<p>

The 'go' order came through.

"Move into engagement range," he ordered, "Fire as soon as you have a shot." They were the first squad in, their guns equipped with adamantium tipped tranquilizer needles, each loaded with a 20mg dose of atropine. The six-man squad descended, opening fire before they even reached the ground.

The target reacted too quickly. Far too quickly. No one had that kind of reaction time. Six tranquilizer rounds went straight and true, but she was already out of the way. They thudded into the dirt. In the time it took for his eyes to widen, one of Sergeant Johnson's men was dead - thrown headfirst into a tree and his body splattered over a three meter radius surrounding it.

Too slow. Too damned slow. "Take... her... down..." the words seemed to take an eternity to form, a second eternity to say. A wave of incredible heat accompanied twin beams of coherent energy emitted from her eyes, and three more of his men died, their bodies reduced to charred skeletons in an instant.

She was in front of him. He brought his gun around. Too slow. She put her fist through Corporal Jensen's face. It came out the back of his skull, heralded by a spray of brains and blood.

James Johnson, his gun leveled at the woman, pulled the trigger.

In the time it took for the release of compressed gas to propel the dart out the front of his rifle, she was already behind him. He felt something grab him by both arms, and then agony, and then darkness.

* * *

><p>"First team is down! Attack! All forces, attack!"<p>

The world became a storm of bullets and fire. Helicopters made strafing runs, unleashing their rocket pods on the girl as explosion after explosion lit up the area where she had stood a second earlier. An adamantium round fired from a 50 caliber sniper rifle grazed her shoulder, and THAT actually hurt, leaving a gash half an inch deep.

Divine took to the air, and a humvee was melted to slag after six seconds of focus from her heat vision. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents followed her up, swarming through the air like angry bees, plasma rifles discharging again and again into the place she had just been. Some found their mark to negligible effect.

Divine clapped her hands together, and the ensuing sonic boom knocked six agents unconscious in midair. Their landings were neither safe nor pleasant.

"Sir, the battle's gone pear-shaped. Recommend immediate withdrawal!"

The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in charge on the ground had not time to voice his order before the wreckage of a helicopter crashed down on top of him.

The engagement lasted thirty seconds from start to finish. Six attack helicopters, two humvees, two hundred men, destroyed.

Corporal Frank Riley, the two hundred and first man and army ranger, stood before Divine, alone. Her eyes fixed on his, and he met her gaze, a soldier to the end, proud and unafraid. He knew that he couldn't hope to harm her. Knew he was going to die. Knew this was the end. He could hear the sound of an approaching plane. Reinforcements, perhaps. It wouldn't matter. They had made a mistake. They were all going to die.

She walked towards him almost lazily, both arms drenched in gore, the rest of her blood-splattered, looking like nothing so much as the promise of doom. She flashed forward.

The Sentry was there.

Divine had time to look surprised. He was as fast as she was. And he was strong. And he had just caught her arm in a grip as immovable as a kryptonite mountain. She strained against him, and he against her, and each shook from the effort, but he proved the stronger. "No more," he said. "No more will fall to you this day."

Others descended from the plane. From the Avengers' quinjet. Iron Man. Spider-Man. Captain America. Spider-Woman. Wolverine.

The Sentry seized her other arm and lifted off into the sky, taking her with him. They ascended into orbit, fighting every step of the way. And then he threw her into the sun. Faster than light. It took ten seconds to cross the intervening space. She plunged into the star and vanished without a trace.

The Sentry descended, landed in the park once more. "She won't be bothering us again," he said.

"What did you do to her?" Captain America asked, his expression grim.

"I sent her on an all expense paid vacation to the photosphere," Sentry replied.

Spider-Man stared. "You threw her… into the sun."

The Sentry smirked, trying and failing not to look smug. "Yes."

Wolverine sheathed his claws, looking annoyed. He often looked annoyed when their fights involved the Sentry.

"She's solar-powered," Spider-Man said.

"So?"

'Fifteen seconds, Sentry,' CLOC said.

"Solar," Spider-Man said, "As in the sun."

Sentry's smirk faded as he thought about it. "There's a difference between getting your power from the sun and being able to survive being thrown INTO the sun," he said. He looked around. "I've got something to take care of in Cairo. You can handle it from here." He lifted into the air.

Spider-Man reacted, leaping into the air and swinging out of the way, responding to a danger only he could sense.

And then a black and pink blur trailing a plume of plasma that stretched from the upper atmosphere all the way down to the surface of the earth slammed into The Sentry from above. There was an horrific, sickening crack that was almost lost beneath the accompanying sonic boom. Dirt and grass and trees and sections of concrete pathways went flying.

'Sentry?' CLOC asked. 'Sentry, can you hear me? Your vital signs have spiked dangerously. Sentry, respond! Three seconds. Two. One. Reassessing. Reprioritizing.'

The Sentry lay at the bottom of a crater fifty meters across, his left arm twisted at an unnatural angle, shards of bone visibly sticking up through broken flesh, staring mutely at his mangled limb. Iron Man still hovered over the scene. Spider-Man had gotten clear. Captain America and Spider-Woman lay unconscious halfway up the side of the crater, each of them half-buried in dirt. Wolverine was better off - he'd been further away, and had only been knocked prone by the impact, and was even now getting back on his feet and rubbing his head.

Divine floated overhead like an angry goddess. Like an angry naked goddess, her clothing burned away by her trip into the sun, but otherwise completely unharmed. "And then there were three," she said.

Spider-Man swallowed audibly.

Sentry rose back to his feet. "I'm... not... done yet," he ground out, and then unleashed a cataclysmic blast of yellow light from his uninjured hand, unleashing the power of a million exploding suns in its purest, most raw form. For a moment, Spider-Man thought he could see Divine's form in the flare. Then it was gone.

The light faded.

Divine floated exactly where she had before, except now her eyes seemed to shine with golden light. "Oh my God," she said, and giggled. "Do that again. I've NEVER felt so... I feel like I could do ANYTHING!"

Sentry clenched his fist.

Battle was joined.

The two struck each other with blows that sent shockwaves through the surrounding area, and for a few seconds, they seemed evenly matched. And then Divine gained the upper hand, and the battle became less of a battle and more of a curbstomp.

"I can't help but notice that she's thrashing him now," Spider-Man said. Divine landed a particularly savage blow, kicking Sentry in the balls at near full super-charged strength, and Spider-Man found himself cringing in sympathetic reaction. "... wow, that one actually hurt to watch."

Iron Man stared.

"What's plan B?" Spider-Man asked.

"Deploy our psychic resources and overwhelm her mind," Iron Man replied.

"The psychic resources we're borrowing from Xavier's?" Spider-Man asked. "The psychic resources that are still five minutes out?"

"Yes, those ones."

Spider-Man paused a moment. "... What's plan C?"

Sentry's body hit the ground with an earthshaking roar. For a moment it seemed he would rise to continue the fight... but then he collapsed, and didn't get back up.

Divine turned her attention to the remaining Avengers. "Now, where where we?"

"Tony?" Spider-Man asked, feeling a little panicked. "Plan C?"

"Don't die," Tony replied. Divine shot towards him, and he managed to evade her blow by luck more than anything else, firing off his repulsors into her back as she zoomed overhead. Supercharged as she was by Sentry's attempts to destroy her, she didn't particularly notice.

Wolverine went next, charging, leaping, roaring with animalistic fury. She let him get in a few swipes, an amused expression on her face, confident that there was nothing he could do that could hurt her. … and then he stabbed her in the chest with two sets of adamantium claws, and the blades come out her back with a spray of blood, and her eyes went wide.

"Oh..." Divine said.

Wolverine grinned savagely, twisting his claws. "Not so tough now, are ya?"

She pushed him away, and his claws pulled free of her body with the sickening wet sound of tearing flesh. But even as her life's blood flowed out through the holes he'd made, the holes healed before their eyes, sealing shut in a matter of seconds. "... nice... try," she said, and then rose back to her full height. "But it will take more than that to kill me." But it was clear that it had taken something out of her to regenerate from that. Her eyes weren't glowing any longer, at least.

Iron Man bombarded her from above with blasts from his armor. Wolverine charged again, this time to meet a blast of full strength heat vision which burned off hair, skin and muscle alike and cooked his brain inside his skull. He fell to the ground, momentarily dead. Iron Man weaved to avoid a second blast, but this was a calculated shot: he dodged directly into the path of her physical attack. She seized him by the leg, and slammed him into the ground three times. The armor had the means to dampen kinetic impact to ensure that it didn't affect Tony, but this was more than it had been designed to handle.

He passed out on the second hit.

Divine turned to face Spider-Man. "And then there was one," she said.

His spider-sense screamed a warning, and even so, he barely avoided her charge, leaping up and over. Spider-Man's mind raced. 'Don't die,' Tony had said. 'Don't die.' He was superhuman, but she was on another level all together. He needed to... not die. The X-Men were on their way. He needed to... not get distracted by the unbelievably gorgeous naked girl who was trying to murder him.

Spider-sense. He twisted in mid-air, shot a line of webbing to latch onto the side of the crater Divine had made when she'd plowed into Sentry from above, and yanked hard to alter his trajectory just in time to avoid taking a blast of her heat vision full on. One minute. He needed to last one minute. He could do this.

Spider-Sense. He ducked underneath her haymaker blow. he began. Spider-Sense, and he sprang backwards into the air in a breathtaking acrobatic leap, doing a full flip even as he shot two streams of web-fluid, one at her eyes, the second at a tree beyond the zone of destruction. She evaded the the shot at her eyes, but it bought him another second. Spider-sense. He pivoted in mid-air to evade her fist. He landed on the tree feet first. Spider-Sense, and he grabbed her arm in mid-punch, working with her momentum and not against it, redirecting her. Divine plowed into the ground. He took the opportunity to fire off two quick blasts of web-fluid.

'Not too shabby,' he congratulated himself.

She rose to her feet.

"OK," Spider-Man said, "Now turn around so I can get your backside."

Divine gave him a look. The sort of look that asked, 'the hell you say?'

"What? We're trying to keep this family friendly."

"OK," Divine conceded, "So I'm a little bigger than average. Do you really have to make a big deal of it when I'm squashing you like the bug that you are?"

Spider-sense. He sprang off the tree just in time to not get cooked alive by another blast of heat-vision. "Spiders are arachnids, actually," he said helpfully.

And then he wasn't quick enough. She clipped him with a blow, cutting off his words, and Spider-Man went flying through the trunk of a fully grown tree and into the trunk of a second, which cracked under the impact. And he knew pain.

She stalked towards him, taking her time, savoring the experience.

A scream of rage came from her left. Wolverine was on his feet, and charging. She side-stepped his swipes and kicked him in the chest. He went flying, plowing through tree after tree after tree until he finally tumbled to a stop out of Spider-Man's line of sight.

"You're slippery, and your friend is hard to kill, but I think this is over, now."

"You're not wrong," came an unexpected voice: the voice of Emma Frost, her eyes glowing

Spider-Man looked up, and Divine whirled to face the new threat. The Kryptonian got as far as looking into Emma's glowing eyes before her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed, hitting the ground with a disproportionately loud thump.

The X-Men had arrived.

"Glad you could... make it..." Spider-Man wheezed.

"You know us," Cyclops replied, "We never like to miss a party."

Spider-Man's vision was beginning to blur. He tried to stand, but a wave of dizziness sent him to his knees.

Oh, right. He was bleeding. And hurting. And probably had a concussion. And might have broken a few bones. And...

The world went dim.

* * *

><p>The Sentry came back to awareness in a hospital bed, and hurting everywhere. This was a first. What had...? The events at the park came rushing back. Shame overwhelmed him. Worse than the physical pain. Worse than the pain in his arm.<p>

"Bob?" His wife's voice. "Bob, are you ok? I was so scared...!"

He didn't look at her. Couldn't look at her.

"He needs time to recover." Tony. Tony Stark was here.

"I've never seem him so..." There was pity in her tone, and his shame burned all the brighter.

He tried to sit up. "I... she... HURT me."

And for the first time since he'd thrown the creature into the sun, he heard an echo, a voice like the Void's in his thoughts but... different. "Yes," it said, its laughter loud and mocking, "Isn't it precious?"

He clenched his eyes shut.

"Bob, I'm here," his wife - Lindy - said. "I'm here for you. You just rest now. You have to get better."

He tried to sit up, tried to pull out the IV with its adamantium needle feeding nutrients into his arm. Tried to... he fumbled at it for a few moments. "I have to... I have top stop her," he said. I'm the only one powerful enough to..."

"It's under control, Sentry," Tony said. "The X-Men took care of it."

He met Tony's gaze. "I have to... she's... nobody's ever... I'm the only one who can..."

"No, you aren't. She's a Kryptonian, Sentry. Against her, you're a liability."

Sentry sat up in shock, ignoring the pain that roared through his body at the movement. "WHAT?"

"You've got the power of a million exploding suns," Tony said, trying to be as gentle as he could, "She draws power from the sun. Do the math."

The Sentry clenched his one still functional fist. "Impossible..." he muttered.

Tony sighed. "The X-Men have her under control, Sentry. She's dealt with. Don't get involved."

The sound of footsteps. Tony was leaving. The door opened. The door shut.

"Bob?" Lindy asked. "Bob, look at me, please."

He sank back down onto his bed, unable or unwilling to meet his wife's gaze. She took a deep breath. He'd upset her. He knew that. But he couldn't... he couldn't... he...

The sound of footsteps. The door opened. The door shut. His wife had left.

Robert Reynolds stared blankly at the ceiling, left alone with himself, and the laughter of the Void rang loudly in his mind.

_**End Chapter 11**_

* * *

><p>Author's note: Many thanks to joehundredaire for his assistance with this and other chapters<p> 


	12. The X Factor

"Are you serious?" The speaker was in his early thirties, maybe. Brown hair, brown eyes, 5'11" or so, wearing a green shirt with two parallel rows of yellow circles, a black jacket, black slacks, black shoes. His name was Jamie Madrox, he was seated in Scott Summers' office, and he was currently regarding Scott with the most dubious of looks.

"Very," Scott replied.

"Why us? Hell, why haven't you handed her over to SHIELD? They're sure as hell better equipped to investigate something like this."

"SHIELD doesn't have the means to keep her under wraps. We do. And why you?" Scott met Jamie's gaze. "You're good at what you do, and you're a known factor. An ally. We know we can trust you to do the right thing. And a friend recommended you."

Jamie scoffed. "You remember who you're talking to, right?"

"I remember," Scott said.

"So you want to hire us to trace this girl - who doesn't exist according to official records - back to whoever it is that was pulling her strings - a man who might not even exist in this dimension?"

"That's right."

"... You know that we're busy with our own investigations, right?"

Scott nodded.

Jamie sighed. "We'll see what we can do. No promises, but we'll do what we can."

Scott smiled. "I knew I could count on you."

"Yeah, yeah."

Jamie didn't particularly like that Scott Summers thought of him as a 'known factor.' Something in him chafed at that. Reminded him of what that duplicate had said, after M-Day. It bothered him that the dupe's words resonated so strongly, but there they were:

The fly in the ointment.  
>The spanner in the works.<br>Unpredictable.

* * *

><p>A New World in my View<br>by P.H. Wise  
>An X-Men Crossover Fanfic<p>

Chapter 12: The X-Factor

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby.

* * *

><p>"So that's Divine, huh?" Noriko asked.<p>

Karen nodded. A woman named Rogue had brought them down, and was in another room at the moment, but probably going to be out at any moment. She and her friends stood at the entrance to the titanium-steel holding cell. With its walls and door reinforced with a force shield plus a nullification field able to render a mutant unable to use their powers, the cell would have been enough for most threats. Divine, though, was not a mutant, and the nullification field would do to her precisely nothing. So what dominated the cell was a bit nonstandard: no bed, no toilet, no chain or shackles, but a large transparent stasis tube inside which Power Girl's clone rested, held in suspended animation.

It was weird, looking down at a mirror image of herself. Well, except for the hair color.

"I hear Miss Frost is planning to rewrite her brain," Julian said, making a stabbing motion as if it somehow helped to emphasize 'rewriting.' "Just gonna go in there, fry her synapses, and then rewrite her from the ground up."

"I'm sure Miss Frost would never dream of doing such an awful act, even to an enemy," Cessily said. Everyone looked at her. She blushed. "... OK, she'd do it in a heartbeat if she thought she had to."

"Is that OK?" Laurie asked. "Is that really any different from killing her?"

An uncomfortable silence fell.

"Well, what other choice is there?" Cessily asked.

"Good question."

The speaker was one Karen didn't recognize. She'd heard the girl approaching - super hearing and all. She turned. The girl was blonde, her hair in pig tails. She had green eyes, and she wore a white tank-top over a blue skirt with orange and black striped leggings.

"You a new student?" Julian asked, and folded his arms. "You know you shouldn't be down here without a teacher, right?"

"I know lots of things," the girl replied. Karen pegged her as somewhere in the neighborhood of sixteen, maybe. Hard to tell.

Karen raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah? Like what?"

The girl shrugged. "I know you've got an appointment you're not going to want to be late for, today. And that going home is going to make you angry."

Noriko made a face. "What are you, a fortune teller?"

The girl shrugged a second time.

"Then I'm not impressed," Noriko said. "I can do way better than that. 'A meeting with a stranger will change your life.'" She gestured to the stasis tank where Divine slept. "Or how about 'I sense that you're having a problem with a friend or relative'?"

The girl gave Noriko an annoyed look, but said nothing.

"Who are you, anyways?" Karen asked.

The girl smiled, as if amused by a private joke. "I'm Layla Miller," she said. She might have gone on, but a voice called down the hall at that moment.

"Layla!" Woman's voice. Scottish accent.

The group turned. A woman with short red hair was fast approaching. "When Jamie said you could tag along, I doubt he meant 'could sneak into off-limits parts of the mansion'," she said.

"Rahne?" Noriko asked.

The woman smiled. "Hello, everyone. Keeping out of trouble?"

"Your hair," Laurie said, staring.

Rahne grinned, running her fingers through her buzz-cut hair. "Figured it was time for a change," she said. "You like it?"

Laurie nodded. "It looks good," she lied.

Layla shrugged, then. "We going?"

Rahne gave Layla an irritated look. "Aye," she said.

Karen and the others exchanged glances as the two made their way back the way Rahne had come. 

* * *

><p>Three hundred soldiers dead. Six combat helicopters destroyed. Two humvees destroyed. Half a mile of public land reduced to a series of pockmarked craters. The mission only saved from complete disaster by the intervention of assets from the Avengers and the X-Men. To say that Maria Hill was having a bad day was to understate the matter. She'd never felt any particular urge to drink profusely, but about now it seemed like a reasonable thing to do.<p>

The day after the biggest failure her career had ever known, a failure which had in all likelihood torpedoed that career and sent it straight to the bottom, Maria Hill sank into her office chair. She had been... wrong.

And here he was, President of the United States on her personal comm-channel, ready to tell her all about the mistake she'd made.

"I expect your resignation by tomorrow," he said.

"I don't work for you, sir," she replied. "SHIELD is an international agency under the purview of the United Nations. I know we like to pretend differently, but it would require a full vote by the security council..."

"The vote is scheduled for Tuesday."

That was it then. The sense of resignation she felt must have showed on her face, because his expression softened.

"For what it's worth, Maria, I'm sorry it turned out this way. You're a good agent, but you made a monumentally bad call. The sort of bad call I can't just sweep under the rug."

She didn't reply. Didn't look up.

"Do you really intend to put SHIELD through this? The official investigation into your mistake? A complete neutering of its ability to function while the wheels of the bureaucracy move towards your dismissal? Don't disappoint me, Maria."

Silence. He disconnected a moment later. Three hundred dead. She'd been wrong. So very, very wrong.

And there, alone, in the dark, Maria Hill said what she could never say in public. Not to Tony. Not to Captain America. Not even to the President of the United States. Never in a million years. There, in the dark, whispered to the empty room: "... I'm sorry."

It didn't help. 

* * *

><p>The responsibilities of a king were many. It was more than just being a head of state. The king and his land were one, as the king and his people were one. Namor, King of Atlantis, had privilege beyond those of any ordinary Atlantean, but with that privilege came responsibilities. Sometimes, meeting those responsibilities brought him grief. Sometimes, meeting those responsibilities was a pleasure. Taking vengeance upon the one who had maimed Namorita - his cousin and member of the royal family of Atlantis - would be the latter.<p>

He and his honor guard stood at the gates of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, and he was not impressed with what he saw.

"Sir, you'll have to wait," the soldier at the gate told him. "I need to check this with my superior."

They would have him wait? They would have him 'go through channels?' "I think not," he replied.

He went through the gate. Literally. A mass of twisted, discarded metal was all that was left in his wake. His honor guard followed him through, and the guard stared, dumbfounded.

Two Sentinels were on them eight seconds later. "Halt! This is a restricted area! You will drop your weapons and place your hands over your head!"

Sentinels. They had sent Sentinels to face him. The X-Men under guard. Hundreds of mutants living in what he could only describe as an ethnic ghetto here on the grounds of the institute, tents mingling with more permanent structures right up to the mansion itself. Did they suppose that because his human half bore the mutant genome that he felt threatened by such machines? Only one response could be made.

"IMPERIUS REX!"

He shot into the air and delivered a titanic blow to the first robot's midsection, the fist of a king against reinforced armor plating. The armor plating lost that fight. The robot fell, a five foot hole ripped through it by the power of the Atlantean king.

"TARGET IS HOSTILE!" the panicked voice of the other Sentinel called, and that piqued his curiousity. These creatures had always been emotionless. Now they knew fear? "ENGAGING!"

"HOLD!" a woman's voice called from the back of an approaching jeep. "Stand down, Sentinels!" A blonde woman. Impressive, as surfaces went. More impressive, the Sentinel did as she commanded, lowering its arm: the two which had been en route from the other side of the grounds halted in mid-air. The jeep pulled up in front of him, and the woman turned towards him. "My apologies, King Namor. We didn't know you were coming."

"The failure of SHIELD to inform you of my impending visit is not my concern," he replied. "You are Valerie Cooper, are you not? Where are the X-Men, Miss Cooper?"

Valerie gestured to the mansion. "My men have sent word of your arrival. I'd like to keep 'misunderstandings' to a minimum."

"We shall see," he replied. Not the most diplomatic answer he could have given, but an honest one.

He made his way to the mansion, leaving a very worried looking Valerie Cooper in his wake.

* * *

><p>Two hours. Two hours till her appointment with Stephen Strange. Two hours till she returned to her own body. Two hours until all of this was nothing but a memory. Karen - or was it Xander? - shook her head. "How do you tell someone about something like this?" she wondered aloud. "Do you just go up to them and say, 'hey, I just thought you should know, I'm actually a guy from another universe who's been stuck in this body for the last few months, and now I'm going back to my old body and my old home'?"<p>

Kara gave Karen a level look. "They're your friends, aren't they?"

"Yeah, but... I dunno. Maybe if I hadn't lied about it at the beginning, but..." she trailed off. "I don't think any of them would be my friends if I hadn't."

"You don't give them enough credit. They're better people than you think."

"Maybe. But I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be very understanding about something like that, so, yeah, I'm having a hard time seeing them blowing it off and being all, 'no big deal!'"

They were in the bathroom in the room Karen shared with Noriko. Or rather, they were just leaving it, the sound of the flushing toilet loud in the room for a moment, followed by the sound of the water faucet as she took a moment to wash her hands. Once, Karen had been absolutely mortified by … well, ordinary, day to day biological processes in her new body. Now, it just was. The idea of shaving her legs had seemed like a blow to her masculinity. Now, well, with Kara's knowledge of how her power worked, Karen had used her heat vision to produce the same effect as laser hair removal: not permanent removal, but a permanent reduction of hair growth. She only needed to touch it up once a week or so at this point, and that no longer bothered her. A lot of things no longer bothered her, and it kind of bothered her that they no longer bothered her, if that made any sense. A little less than three months seemed like too short a time for things to stop bothering her.

Well, it made sense to Karen, anyways.

"What's the first thing you're going to do when you get back into your real body?" Kara asked.

Karen blushed.

The look on Kara's face at that moment was one difficult to fully describe. "... Seriously?" she asked.

Karen blushed more. 'What? A guy's got needs, and so does a girl, and you never let me...' She tried not to continue that line of thought. She was entirely unsuccessful, and in another moment, she was blushing so much that even her ears turned red.

"A girl may have needs," Kara said, "But the idea of letting a guy controlling her body service them for her is too creepy for words, OK?"

'Almost three months...' Karen thought woefully.

"You think I don't know that? … Can we talk about something else?"

Karen left the room, then, heading down the halls of the Xavier Institute, passing Kitty Pryde and Rachel Grey in the hall. Rachel's expression when she looked Karen's way was comparable to what Kara's had been a few moments earlier.

'... That girl's a telepath,' Karen thought.

Rachel continued to stare.

"Yup," Kara said, blushing almost as intensely as Karen.

'She just heard everything we just said.'

Now Rachel was blushing.

"Yup," Kara said.

'... Death is looking like kind of an appealing alternative right now,' Karen thought.

"Yup," Kara said.

Kitty tugged on Rachel's arm, and the two of them went off down the hall.

'... Well it's not like I've got any shortage of times I've humiliated myself in front of a cute girl,' Karen thought despondently.

"It's not THAT bad," Kara said.

Karen shook her head. 'OK. New subject. What are YOU going to do when you get your body back under your control?'

"Take a bath. Fly to the moon and back. See if anyone needs my help. … Go home." A pause. "I wonder if it's been three months back home?" Kara asked, not really expecting an answer. "... I hope Atlee's OK."

Karen smiled. 'I'm looking forward to seeing Willow and Buffy again.' Her smile faded. 'God,' she thought, 'I even miss CORDELIA, and I'm treasurer of the 'We Hate Cordelia' club.'

"The 'We Hate Cordelia Club'?" Kara asked.

'Don't ask.'

"IMPERIUS REX!" someone shouted, followed by the sound of ripping metal and a gut-wrenching impact.

In a flash, Karen was outside, flying, zooming along towards the entrance to the mansion.

A Sentinel was down. A man with black hair and pointed ears was leading a group of blue-skinned people with face-masks towards the mansion.

Karen landed in their path. "OK," she said, "I don't know what your problem is, but if you intend to attack this …" she trailed off as she noticed the blonde woman in the approaching jeep who was frantically waving to get her attention. "You're not actually hostile, are you?" she asked, feeling somewhat embarrassed.

Namor smirked. "You must be the original," he said, holding up his arm: his honor guard halted.

Karen glanced towards the approaching jeep, then back to Namor. "You're here about Divine, huh?"

Namor nodded. "Your clone stands accused of the attempted murder of a member of the Atlantean royal family. As King of Atlantis, I intend to see to it that she be transferred to my custody."

Karen stared.

"He can't be serious," Kara muttered.

"You can't be serious," Karen echoed, and then mentally frowned, 'Why can't he be serious?' she asked.

"She's one of the most deadly creatures on the planet. Taking her out stasis - and more importantly, out of Emma's control - is a recipe for disaster."

Karen echoed Kara's words, and Namor scowled. "You had best pray that the X-Men do not agree with your opinion on the matter. I will not be denied this."

Karen shook her head. "Whatever. Nice to meet you, Aquaman." With that, she rocketed up into the air and kept going until she hit orbit, leaving an offended and slightly puzzled Namor to wonder: '... Aquaman?'

* * *

><p>Sagan once said, 'the Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us - there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation of a distant memory, as if we were falling from a great height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.' And there, floating in space with all the earth below her, watching the interplay of the solar wind and the earth's magnetosphere, Karen felt all of that and more. Kara's powers were beyond amazing. She could see... so much. Hear so much. This she would remember. However briefly, a boy from Sunnydale, and undeserving of such a bounty, had walked among the stars. It looked so different. So much grander than what she knew. She was seeing parts of the universe that humanity had never been equipped to perceive. And there was the Earth floating in the middle of it all, so finite, so lonely, the whole human species carried on its back. And it was... pretty.<p>

Karen frowned. Calling it 'pretty' didn't even come close, but she didn't have a better word. She shook her head. 'I should be used to this by now,' she thought.

Kara smiled.

'You're used to it, right?'

"To an extent," Kara replied. "It never stops forming the context of your daily life. And that context will always separate Kryptonians from human beings. You see the spectrum of visible light. We see everything."

'There's not a lot about being in your body that I'm going to miss,' Karen thought. '... But this, this I'm going to miss.'

She floated there for a good ten minutes, watching as the sun's terminator line spread across the Midwest. Watching as the world woke up, watching as the occasional satellite passed by in the distance. Watching and hearing the radio-song of the Earth's magnetosphere.

And then she spotted the enormous high-tech space station with three futuristic star ships docked at it, a fourth departing, and a fifth on approach.

"No way," she muttered. Or tried to. It was hard to talk in a vacuum. She didn't need to breathe at this point: the yellow sunlight supplied all the sustenance she needed, but it still felt weird to feel the air empty out of her lungs with her attempt at speech.

'The hell is that?' Karen wondered.

"Don't ask me," Kara replied. "This isn't my world."

A small vessel undocked from the space station and made its way over towards her, coming closer and closer, and then...

_'Well, well,'_Irma's telepathic voice said all at once. _'Between making Rachel blush worse than I've ever seen, offending the King of Atlantis, and now violating the airspace of... OK, I'm not sure what that is, you've racked up an impressive tally of accomplishments in the last hour, haven't you?'_

'Urk,' Karen thought.

_'Get back down here before those space ships decide to open fire. We need to talk.'_

Karen glanced at Kara's ghostly form and found no help there. With a shrug, she descended. She went slowly in order to not burn up her clothing on reentry, but her shoes still got a little singed. Irma was broadcasting her location, which was good: it would have been hard to hone in on a single individual from orbit, otherwise, Karen spotted her far, far below, standing next to the entrance of the maze on the grounds of the Xavier estate.

She descended. Landed without a sound.

"Hey," she said.

Irma looked up. "Hey," she replied.

A pause. "You weren't planning to say goodbye," Irma said. A statement of fact. An undertone of anger. Ice beneath that.

Karen looked down at the ground. "I... uh..."

"Don't bother, Xander," Irma said. "I already know every excuse you've invented for this. I never pegged you for a coward, before."

That struck a chord. For the span of maybe half a second, Karen felt a deep, angry resentment. For the span of maybe half a second, she kind of hated Irma. And then she felt ashamed. "What was I supposed to say?" she asked.

"'Goodbye'," Irma said. "That's all. I know what's going to happen, Xander. I know that I'm not going to see you again in that body. Maybe not ever. And even if I do, you'll be different. I just thought that maybe you wouldn't leave without saying goodbye."

She was angry. Karen felt like she kind of deserved it. What happened next was more instinct than anything else: she moved in, took Irma into her arms, and kissed her. A deep, prolonged kiss, filled with longing, and with that bittersweet sense of impermanence. Irma welcomed it, leaning into her. And when it was over, Karen looked into Irma's eyes and whispered, "... Goodbye."

And then she was airborne again, flying again, moving off towards Doctor Strange's home, scrubbing at her eyes and calling herself an idiot the whole way.

* * *

><p>The Sentry had spent the day in pain. Robert Reynolds had spent the day in pain. Reed Richards had done his best to accelerate the healing process, and the advanced technology of the Baxter building's medical facilities were indeed a wonder: provided he went in for a treatment every day, the Sentry would be fully healed within a week. A compound fracture, fully healed, one week.<p>

The idea that he had been injured at all still burned like a brand to the gut. Only one creature had ever been able to hurt him, and he had thrown it into the sun. The Void would be back. He knew that. It always came back. Always undid all the good he'd accomplished. Always. But now, this... Divine could hurt him.

Divine.

Tony said to leave her alone. The X-Men had it handled. Reed agreed with Tony, and that hurt. A rational person might have taken their warnings for what they were: a reflection of a unique situation wherein his power set happened to be a bad match up against the villain's. It happened to everyone, Reed had said. That was one reason why you had team mates. If the villain fed on fire, Johnny had the rest to fall back on. If the villain grew more powerful with kinetic impact, The Thing could rely on his team mates to find another way to take it down. It happened.

It didn't happen to the Sentry.

Bob Reynolds, not a rational man, was curled up with his arms around his legs, one arm still in the armored cast that Reed had made for it, rocking back and forth on a church pew. It was dark. He was alone. And someone had hurt him. He didn't know how long he stayed like that, ignoring CLOC, ignoring the whole world. He just knew that it hurt, and it shouldn't.

It was a Victorian church. Wood construction. High ceilings that peaked in the middle. Two rows of pews. Stained glass windows along the eastern wall, lit up with the light of the morning sun. A crucifix on the front wall, and an altar before it on the stage, and a pulpit in front of that. He'd come here because it was empty.

But it wasn't empty.

He heard the man's approach long before he saw him. Soft on his feet, but loud for one with super-hearing. Footsteps on the rich, burgundy carpet that went the length of the church, between the two rows of pews. A presence. He kept rocking.

"What troubles you, my son?" asked a kindly voice.

An older man with white hair dressed in a black suit with a white shirt, a black tie, and a silver cross hanging down over the tie. He was smiling, and Bob stopped rocking, looked up and met his gaze for a good six seconds. The man didn't look away. Bob did.

"Is it your injury which brings you here?" the man asked. "Do you seek the Lord's healing?"

"She shouldn't have been able to hurt me," Bob muttered.

The old man smiled grimly at that. "A woman did this to you, then? I might have known."

Bob looked up.

"It's no mystery, son. By the actions of one woman in the Garden of Eden, all mankind was made to suffer. Theirs has ever been the sex more prone to wickedness. A woman tempted man into sin," he looked a bit rueful, "As a woman once tempted me into sin. To forsake my divine calling. It's no mystery at all."

Bob shook his head, his thoughts growing clearer now. "No," he said. "There was no garden. Women aren't... who are you?"

"Me? I am the Lord's humble servant. But if you need a name, then I am the Reverend William Stryker. This is my church you have sought refuge within, and it is open to all who are in need."

Bob's expression became more closed off. More guarded. "You're being tried for attempted murder."

"A vicious lie. The devil moves against God's chosen, son. He fears the good work we might do." He sat down next to Bob, then, putting a hand on the Sentry's shoulder. "When a man comes through those doors in your state, it's usually because he wants to talk. The Lord is here for you, young man. As his his servant."

Silence for about fifteen seconds. And then, "... I thought I was rid of the Void," Bob whispered. "I threw him into the sun. But he always comes back."

Stryker hid his smile, and nodded along sympathetically. He knew who Sentry was. He had heard of the Void. Most people had. "This 'Void' has returned?"

"I heard him," Bob confessed. "When I fought with... her. Divine. I heard the Void's laughter."

"And you'd like to know what that means."

Bob didn't answer.

"Son, I am no Sentry. The all-mighty never saw fit to bless me with any form of power beyond what is common to all his children: the indwelling of the holy spirit. But that girl, that girl who falsely claims the title of 'Divine,' let's consider her a moment, shall we?" Stryker paused, wetting his lips with his tongue before he went on. "Her powers mirror your own, do they not? Hers and her sister's?"

Bob nodded. "I... yes, they do."

"And there are two of them. One light, one dark. What does that say to you?"

Bob shivered. One light. One dark. One serving the cause of good, one in the service of wickedness. Powers that mirrored his own. He didn't want to think about the implications of that idea.

"If this situation really is what it appears to be, can you really afford not to take action?"

"But the light only made her stronger... she only grew more powerful..."

"The Lord once directed his servant Gideon to attack the Midianites under cover of darkness," Stryker said.

"I..." Bob shook his head. "No. You're not... I shouldn't listen to you."

"Gideon doubted as well. Listen to me, Sentry, and listen well: God does not require blind obedience. Behold, I shall perform a miracle. Give me your maimed arm."

Bob looked doubtfully down at his cast, then at Stryker. He rose to his feet, then. "It was a mistake to come here," he muttered. "You're trying to manipulate me. You've got a grudge against the X-Men, and you know that their mansion is where she's being held..."

"Give me your maimed arm, son. If God does not restore you here and now, then you can be on your way and content in the knowledge that I am but a senile old man, as deluded as he is foolish."

Bob started to leave. The laughter of the Void rang out in his thoughts once more, and he stopped in his tracks. He turned, and he offered his arm, cast and all, to William Stryker.

Stryker laid his hands upon Bob's arm above and below the cast. "Lord God all-mighty, your servant the Sentry stands now at a crossroads in his life, a terrible choice, with every path shrouded in darkness. All mighty God, just as Gideon once asked for and received a sign of your favor, I now ask you to bestow a sign upon the Sentry to show him your will. Bring healing to him as you have brought healing to so many throughout the ages." His voice rose, gaining a richness and a power that it had lacked before, "I ask that you knit these bones back together, and do the work of healing your servant here and now, oh Lord!"

The sensation of pins and needles began in the Sentry's arm, and soon it spread, down to the tips of his fingers, up to the top of his head.

"In Jesus name," Stryker cried, his voice reaching a crescendo, "And for his sake I ask this, in order that your servant might know your will!" And then Stryker looked Bob in the eye and said, "Sentry, In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, be healed!"

There was a flare of something white-hot in his arm, and Bob jerked away from Stryker. The cast cracked down the middle and fell to the ground, and the pain vanished, and Bob stared at his arm in wonder: all sign of the injury was gone. "... What?"

And Stryker grinned like a madman. "The sign is given," he said.

"This is..." Sentry began.

"A miracle," Stryker finished.

* * *

><p>"You think she actually thinks she's foolin' anyone with that fake English accent?" Rahne Sinclair asked, her own Scottish accent a little thicker than normal. Probably in reaction to having been in the presence of Emma Frost.<p>

Jamie raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Emma," Rahne said. "She and hers are an old Boston family."

They were back at the main office for X-Factor Investigations: a low rent place in what used to be Mutant Town over near Alphabet City on Manhattan Island. A call had been sent out, and now they were waiting for the rest of the team to check in before they started work on the Divine case.

Jamie thought about that for a moment.

"You're hearing it, right?" Rahne put on a really bad imitation on an intense Boston accent, then, which came out sounding the bastard child of a Bostonian and a deep Southern accent: "'Ah'm Emma Frawst. The concaht last night was wicked pissa.'"

"I make it a point never to make fun of a woman who can kill me with her brain," Jamie said.

Rahne made a dismissive gesture.

They heard the sound of Strong Guy making his way up the stairs to the office, then, followed by the tell-tale shriek of Siryn's arrival. M was a little less obvious about it, and once the last of them had arrived, Layla made her way up the stairs and into the office from where she'd been waiting out front.

"OK," Jamie said. "So the X-Men have a job for us. They're even paying us and everything." A very slight smirk. "Makes it all official."

"Don't we already have jobs?" Strong Guy asked, playing the fool for all that he knew better.

"That we do," Jamie said. "And we're not dropping everything for this. It looks big, but it might be a wild goose chase. We'll see. Either way, we're getting paid."

"What's the catch?" Rictor asked.

"Have a look for yourself," Jamie replied, opening up the manila envelope and depositing the papers he'd gotten from Scott Summers on the desk. The others gathered round.

"Divine?" M asked. "Jamie, please tell me we're not investigating whoever might be backing the girl who murdered the New Warriors?"

"We're not investigating whoever might be backing the girl who murdered the New Warriors," Jamie replied easily.

M sighed. "It doesn't work if you lie, darling."

Rahne looked at Layla crossways, then, "What about you, then?" she asked. "You know stuff, aye? What do you know about this?"

Layla shrugged.

"What, no 'you're going to want to take this case'?" Rahne asked.

"I'm not a magic 8-ball," Layla replied. "And I'm pretty sure you can make up your own minds about this one."

M passed the papers she'd been examining to Rictor. "So that's all Emma was able to get out of her mind? Description of some guy who showed up and steered her towards the Stamford house?"

"Well, that and a replica of the business card he showed her," Jamie said. "Did I forget to mention that?" he produced the card from his pocket and set it on the table face down. After a moment, he flipped it over to display the front.

The back of the card showed the neatly handwritten address of the Stamford house.

The front of the card showed the image of a skull atop six curled tentacles.

"... Bollocks," M said.

_**End Chapter 12**_


	13. The Unjoining

Rupert Giles sat at the desk in his office in the Sunnydale High School library, reading over a book on Sumerian mythology. Reading for pleasure was more of a luxury for him than it used to be: the majority of his reading for the last year and a half had been dictated by necessity. Such was the price one paid for being Watcher to an active Slayer, though he rather thought that the Watcher journals should have mentioned that particular price in advance.

It was January 21. The day after Buffy's birthday. Between the threat of the Judge being rebuilt and everything else that had happened, nobody had felt much like celebrating, but he'd insisted. If Buffy Summers was to meet her responsibilities as Slayer, she needed, he had come to believe, a very real sense of what she was fighting for. Friends. Birthdays. Dates. A sense of the world she was protecting. And yet he worried. He worried about his Slayer. About her friends. About the fact that she was dating a vampire. About the fact that they had sent said Vampire to take the arm of the judge away to Tibet. About the fact that he had not heard back from his Slayer since she'd left to see Angel to the docks last night.

The bell rang. Seven fifteen. First period was about to begin. Giles set his book down on the desk, placed a book mark between the pages, and shut it with a thump.

Abruptly, the temperature dropped five degrees. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Goosebumps went up and down his arms. Fearing the worst, Giles rose to his feet and walked out into the main area of the library.

A tiny mote of light hung suspended in mid-air, directly above the point he knew to correspond to the physical location of the Hellmouth.

Rupert Giles' mouth went dry as he stared at the point of light. "Dear Lord," he murmured.

The point of light pulsed, growing ever so slightly larger.

The door to the library opened, and Buffy rushed through. The sight of her, alive and intact, was not as great a relief as it would otherwise have been had there not been a point of light slowly growing into being above the Hellmouth, but he took what comfort he could.

"Giles!" she called. "The Judge is..." she trailed off, staring at the point of light. "Oh God. Is the world ending again?"

He shook his head. "I, I'm not sure."

And far, far away, in a reality far removed from the one in which Rupert Giles waited, Stephen Strange continued to chant the words of the long ritual which would open the way between worlds. 

* * *

><p>A New World in my View<br>by P.H. Wise  
>An X-Men Crossover Fanfic<p>

Chapter 13: The Unjoining

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby.

* * *

><p>Karen sat at the center of a great magical seal, lines of power coursing around her, the voice of Doctor Stephen Strange rising and falling as he chanted a sonorous Latin chant. The ritual was an extended one. One that would take hours. Her home reality was a distant one, and even the likes of Stephen Strange could not open a gate between the two as easily as flipping a switch. It was now forty five minutes into the ritual. The air seemed to hum. If Kara's body had any fillings, they'd probably have been vibrating. The device - the damaged Draconian Katra - was fitted snugly to her left hand. And she was bored out of her mind.<p>

It might seem strange, being bored to tears sitting in the middle of a mystic circle as the Sorcerer Supreme prepared the spell that would send you home, but after the first half hour, Latin chanting and ominous pulses of energy start to lose their charm. At least, that's how Karen justified it in her own mind. Could be that she was also just an extremely shallow person, but she preferred to think that anyone would react the same if they were stuck in a magical circle with one foot half asleep, the other fully asleep, not enough room to stretch them out and fix the problem, and kind of having to go to the bathroom.

Karen had arrived almost two hours earlier, been greeted by Wong, and then been shown into the study to wait.

Doctor Strange had arrived to meet her half an hour later. The conversation between them had been... memorable.

"I remember how to use the artifact, Doctor. You told me yesterday. I don't forget things like that. … Not since I wound up in this body, anyways."

The room reminded Karen of the Sunnydale library. it was the smell more than anything else. Musty old books, she supposed, smelled the same no matter which dimension you were in. The walls were lined with bookshelves, and she had only just stood up from where she'd been waiting in a very comfortable chair next to a reading desk in front of a crackling fire.

Strange smiled. "Then you also remember that there's no guarantee that you'll be deposited in the same spot as your body. You should expect a variance of anywhere from a dozen feet to a few miles. Either way, it should not prove a problem."

Karen nodded. "Thank you, Doctor."

Kara nodded her agreement. "Yes, thank you." She smiled hopefully. "It's hard to imagine this nightmare is almost over."

Karen frowned. "I haven't been that bad, have I?"

Kara gave Karen a look. "You try going from being twenty five one second, teen hormone city the next and see how you feel," she said.

Karen blinked. "... Oh."

Kara smiled apologetically. "... the whole 'I'm fully aware of everything that happens to me but a prisoner in my own body for almost three months' didn't help, either. No offense, Karen, but that's..."

Karen looked uncomfortable. "I... I guess I never thought of it that way. For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

"You're forgiven," Kara replied. Then she smiled. "It's not actually your fault. But I might have a conversation with that Chaos mage once we get to your reality."

Karen looked to the Doctor, then, something having occurred to her suddenly. "Doctor Strange," she began. The good Doctor looked her way. "Back when you were helping the Fantastic Four to, er, test me, I never asked, but what would you have done if I'd failed?"

Doctor Strange met Karen's gaze. "Understand that before your arrival, we were still reeling from the fallout of a powerful ally's descent into madness. She was a woman with the power to reshape reality. A Chaos mage, and a mutant. In her madness, she brought untold suffering to countless others. People died. We did not want to take the risk of such a thing ever occurring again, and..."

Kara raised an eyebrow. "Would you have killed us?" she asked, interrupting the Sorcerer Supreme.

That seemed to take him aback. He replied after an uncomfortable pause. "Likely not," he said. "Likely we would have exiled you, as we did to another who proved too dangerous to allow to remain on the Earth."

"As you did to another?"

A look of guilt crossed Stephen's face, then. "It was a difficult decision. One we arrived at after much deliberation."

Kara stared at Doctor Strange, and it was Doctor Strange who looked away.

"I have preparations to make," Strange said. "Wong will show you in when it is time." He walked out of the room, and the door shut behind him.

"... Can we not make the man who's sending us home angry at us?" Karen asked.

Kara didn't reply. 

* * *

><p>So here Karen was. Here she waited. Kara hadn't spoken since the conversation with Doctor Strange.<p>

The chant went on. 

* * *

><p>"No, Stryker," the Sentry said. "You and yours will not accompany me. I will go to Xavier's at sundown, alone, and attempt to discern the truth of this."<p>

Stryker smiled. "Of course, son. Of course. You must do as your conscience demands." He produced a device, then. "Take this with you. It will shield you from their telepaths. Consider it a gift from the Lord." He pressed the device into Sentry's hands.

As quickly as that, the Sentry was gone. There was a rush of wind, and then nothing. Stryker raised his arm, and pressed his finger into a spot just above his elbow. The tactile hologram which had disguised his artificial limb faded, revealing the new arm in its place: Nimrod's arm. A tiny display showed Sentry's location. Once the man was gone, Stryker produced a phone from his pocket and tapped out a text message. He dared not speak the message aloud for fear that the Sentry would hear him, but this was reasonably secure as far as Bob Reynolds went. The message read: 'It is time to win the war between heaven and hell.'

Stryker left an hour later at the head of a small army of Purifiers. 

* * *

><p>"You must realize that we can't release her to you," Emma said. She, Scott and Namor were in Scott's meticulously organized office. Namor's honor guard waited outside. The sun had only just set, and a faint glow lingered in the western sky.<p>

"And why is that?" Namor asked, being very, very patient.

"The Avengers gave her into our custody with instructions that she be held until SHIELD proved able to hold her," Scott said. "She going to be tried for the murder of the New Warriors and of three hundred soldiers."

Namor didn't like that answer. He didn't like it at all, and it showed on his face.

"I sympathize, but we can't just give her to you without..."

"I had not expected the X-Men to be government lapdogs," Namor said.

"Excuse me?" Scott asked.

"Do you also perform tricks on command?" Namor asked. "Have you grown so used to the presence of Sentinels upon your threshold that you think their presence right and natural? Do you not see what they have done to you? What they are doing to you?"

"Enlighten us," Emma said.

"How many mutants would you say now live upon the grounds of this institute?"

"As of today, six hundred and three," Scott replied.

"And they are sending more every day. You X-Men are able to come and go provided you have a military escort. Is the same true of your refugees?" A pause, and then Namor went on, "Of course it isn't. They're contained here. Why would your government allow the mutant problem free access to the outside world?"

"That's not what's going on here, Namor," Scott insisted.

Namor snorted. "Open your eyes, Summers. You are familiar with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are you not? Article 9. 'No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile'. Or perhaps your own American Constitution is more compelling to you? How about, 'No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.' Tell me, did this Office of National Emergency ask your permission, or the permission of Charles Xavier to quarter troops upon these premises, or did they simply quarter them and then try to convince you that it was for the best?"

Neither Scott nor Emma spoke.

"One does not garrison a school and a private residence with military forces 'for your protection,' Summers. Neither does gathering an ethnic group together in an internment camp 'for their own protection' lead to better conditions for that group. And now they've enlisted you in the quartering of federal prisoners, and you go along with it? The plight of mutants is indeed dire, but I had not thought it was so dire that we had lost our pride."

Scott looked at the ground. "... You sound like Magneto."

"Do I?" Namor asked. "Then perhaps he has a point." He shook his head. "Give me the girl, Summers. You needn't be your government's lap dog. I have the means to contain her. I have read the briefing: psionics or magic. You need not fear. The greatest sorcerers of Atlantis are to be on hand for the transfer of Divine to our custody."

Scott began to reply, but whatever he might have said was ended before it could begin, cut off by the sound of an explosion coming from outside, followed by a brief burst of gunfire. A moment later, the mansion's alarms began to sound.

Scott glared. "What have done, Namor?"

Namor stood. "This is not my doing."

* * *

><p>The caravan of vehicles inexorably made its way towards the Xavier Institute, each filled with purifiers. The Reverend William Stryker could not but laugh. Everything was going according to God's plan. Soon, the mutant problem would be no more. Soon, they would strike a blow for heaven! Soon, they would... police barricade?<p>

Stryker frowned deeply. The road ahead was blocked. A police barricade. God was testing him. The whole caravan of purifiers came to a halt. He opened the door of his car and stepped out. "What seems to be the problem, officers?" he asked.

"William Stryker?" a man in a black business suit stepped forward.

"Reverend, if you please," he said.

"Reverend Stryker, my name is Special Agent Henry Dobbs. We've been monitoring you since you paid bail. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to come with me."

Stryker laughed. How could he not? This pathetic worm of a man thought he could stand against the will of God? "I'm afraid I can't do that," he said, raising once more the arm he had been granted, the arm which covered the deformity inflicted upon him by the devil who called herself Power Girl. A garish pink light flared. A deep, awful sound thrummed out from the gauntlet as it gathered power, readying itself for the task of destroying this impediment. "I AM GOD'S INSTRUMENT!," he cried.

The last thing he saw was a muzzle flash from the roof behind the blockade. The bullet tore through his skull like tissue paper. He had no time to rail against his fate. He was afforded no opportunity to protest that this wasn't the way he was supposed to die. That he deserved better. His body jerked, and he collapsed, dead at the hands of the FBI. A split second late, the gun's report rang out.

The light of his gauntlet winked out. 

* * *

><p>The Sentry stood before Divine's stasis chamber, and a trail of wreckage showed the path he had taken, stretching out through the building, out the front doors which now lay blasted off their hinges, through the wreckage of yet another Sentinel whose pilot had made the mistake of attempting to stop him. The pilot lived. The Sentinel was another story. Here he stood. She looked almost peaceful, asleep like that. Almost... beautiful.<p>

The Void was above all else, a liar. It offended him that it would take this form. The distinction in his mind between 'Power Girl's Void' and his 'Void' was fading. They were the same.

He ripped the stasis pod out of the wall, triggering alarms all across the building. A lesser creature would have been killed by the shock of coming out of cryo-sleep in such a manner. No precautions taken. No protections. Ripped from the cryo chamber by hands harder than diamonds and cast bodily through a reinforced bulkhead.

Divine drew breath, awoke, looked about blearily. Hospital scrubs adorned her form.

"You won't win this time, Void," The Sentry said. "I'm ready for you. I know your tricks. You think you can fool me by using my own powers against me, but that's not going to work again."

Her expression seemed unreadable to him, but her eyes gained focus. "You?" she asked incredulously. "Don't you learn?"

Time seemed to slow down for them both. The Sentry launched himself at her, hoping to bury his fist in her face. His anger bubbled and surged inside him like a living thing, egged on by the very sight of her perfection.

She moved just as fast, scrambling out of the way. His punch caved in the wall she'd come to a rest upon. It took her a full second to fully recover from being dumped from cryo-stasis into wakefulness, but for two opponents moving with such enhanced speed and reaction time, it seemed an eternity. She did not dodge his next twelve blows, caught the thirteenth in her hand, failed to she avoid the knee to the gut, and then she was fighting back, miniature sonic booms rippling through the sublevel as every punch thrown broke the sound barrier. Her eyes narrowed, fixed upon the device Stryker had given him. She feinted, and he was fooled, and she snatched the device off of his uniform.

"Why won't you just die," Sentry hissed. "Why must you plague me? Hound my every step? And now in THIS form? I... I want you to die!" They were comparable in terms of fighting skill. Both were more or less just one-two punch brawlers. And here, far from the light of the sun, Divine's strength was less than his. He gained the advantage, and he flung her headlong. Divine tumbled up through five sub-levels, the ground floor of the mansion, and into the hallway where Emma Frost was even then marshaling the X-Men against the threat which had emerged. Sentry was upon her an instant later, but she reacted slightly more quickly than he, pivoted, and redirected his flying charge, sending him through the wall and into the distance outside the mansion.

Divine's gaze met Emma's.

Emma Frost's eyes widened. She seemed to concentrate, and nothing happened.

Divine quickly deduced what had happened. The device! Of course, nobody who was attacking someone like that bitch who had invaded her mind would do so without a way to shield their thoughts. The device was... oh but this was too precious. "Not working, is it?" she asked, her voice filled with false pity. "Pretty sure I lifted a telepathic scrambler off tall blonde and stupid."

"I see," Emma said, not losing her composure. "What do you intend to do?"

Divine shook her head. "It's nothing personal, but without the scrambler, you're the single biggest threat to me there is. I can't have that." Her eyes flashed as she prepared to discharge a truly massive blast of heat into Emma's body.

Nothing happened.

Emma smirked. "Tell me something, little girl. Exactly what kind of fool do you take me for?"

Divine struggled visibly. She lunged for Emma, but her muscles locked up and she collapsed just short of touching the other woman. "... what did you do...?"

"I may not be able to access your mind, but I don't have to. I've had access to it for almost twenty four hours. That's more than enough time to install a few safety protocols. You can't hurt me. Literally can't. How does that feel?"

"I'll... kill... you..."

"I think not," Emma said, a note of contempt entering into her voice. "I had time to install a few other things as well, of course."

Divine struggled with herself, trying to force herself past the block, failing.

"An off-switch, for example." She met Divine's gaze. "Shibbole..." She was cut off in mid-word.

The Sentry was there once more, and had Emma Frost seized by the throat. "NO!" he roared into her face. "She is MINE to defeat!" He hurled her out the broken wall, and though Emma shifted to diamond form in mid flight, when she hit the ground three miles distant, the impact sent her into unconsciousness. Sentry met Divine's gaze. "This is between me and the Void."

That was when Namor slammed his fist into the back of the Sentry's head at full power, sending the Sentry reeling, his world tilted on its side by the force of the blow and the shockwaves it sent rippling through his grey matter. "She goes with me to answer for her crimes," he said, glaring down at the Sentry. And then he smirked. "For a man with superhuman senses, you are remarkably inattentive."

Divine began to move, now fully recovered. She lifted into the air and fled the building.

Namor was fast on her heels.

The forces of the Office of National Emergency opened fire, and Namor's honor guard as well, concentrating their fire on Divine, hammering her with bullets and electrical discharges from power tridents. She gave them little more thought than she would have a buzzing fly. Namor was more of a threat to her. His strength was problematically high, and he was fast, though not as fast as she was, and she might have been able to capitalize on it had she been more than the one-two punch brawler that she was. Even as Divine and Namor clashed, the Sentry came flying out after the battling pair like a golden thunderbolt, barreling into Divine and taking her straight into the ground from six hundred feet up. The impact destroying several refugee tents. The so called 198 were stampeding away from the conflict now, people panicking, screaming, being trampled. The O*N*E soldiers did what they could to maintain order, but it wasn't enough. One of the surviving Sentinels attempted to engage the brawlers only to be sent back to the Earth in a rain of fiery metal bits.

"You have NO RIGHT to be here!" The Sentry screamed, his mind cracking even further even as he fought against Divine. It was the power. Using so much energy: if he were to lose control, even for a millisecond. It had been much longer than a millisecond, now. "NO RIGHT! The Sentry and the Void can't be copied! Can't be DUPLICATED! I KNOW IT'S YOU!" His eyes blazed like living fire, his skin cracked and glowed as if some impossible internal heat radiated out from within. The air seemed to grow thick. Smothering. Filled with rage.

Irma and her sisters and the New X-Men fled from the school building, heading for the rendezvous point Emma had established outside the zone of conflict. And as explosions and gunfire went off around them, as gods did battle in the skies above, a single thought was broadcast from the mind of the Three-in-One, driven by Irma but amplified by the others: '_... Karen. Help me._' 

* * *

><p>The ritual now neared completion. In a matter of moments Karen would be returned to her world, and with it, her original body. The portal crackled with power as Doctor Strange continued his chant, titanic mystical energies swirling around him as he brought the rite towards its end. And in the midst of that chaos, Irma's voice: <em>'... Karen. Help me.'<em>

Karen's eyes widened. "Doctor!" she shouted, her voice barely audible above the roar of the gathering energies. "Doctor, wait!"

Doctor Strange did not stop. Could not stop. Another six sentences and the ritual would be done. Time seemed to slow.

Karen looked at Kara. Kara looked at Karen.

"... What do I do?" Karen asked.

"The right thing," Kara replied.

Kara nodded, clenching her fist as determination welled up within her. "The right thing," she echoed.

Karen broke the circle, and the ensuing mystical backlash was visible from orbit, pouring upwards in a great pillar of fire which drew in every ounce of magical energy in its path in a self-consuming discharge, and Karen in the eye of the storm.

The discharge flickered, vanished.

Stephen Strange collapsed, clutching at his head in agony.

Karen was gone before Doctor Strange's knees hit the floor. 

* * *

><p>An explosion ripped across the side of the Xavier mansion, raining flaming debris down upon fleeing students which were caught in mid-air by a controlled gust of wind. Storm ascended into the sky, and with her, clouds began to gather, the night growing darker and then darker still as the wind picked up. "Goddess protect us, the Sentry has gone mad! Psylocke!" she called. "Join your power to Rachel's! Stop them before there isn't a school to save!"<p>

The combined telekinetic might of the two mutants lashed out at The Sentry and Divine, and for one shining moment, they were held in place. Namor ascended, almost a walking (or in this case, flying) bruise now, but taking the opportunity to deliver three crushing blows to Divine's chest, and a fourth to the Sentry. They struggled against the telekinetic grip, Sentry's screams now completely incoherent expressions of rage. His shadow seemed to swell, taking on greater and greater definition, growing ever darker as he screamed.

The X-Men opened fire with everything they could throw at the pair. Concussive blasts. Electricity. Bullets. Fire. Telekinetic blasts. Organic spikes. An angry Wolverine traveling at 300 mph with claws extended. Only the last seemed to have an effect, his adamantium claws leaving shallow gashes across The Sentry's ribcage but failing to do anything more. Blood began to seep down Sentry's uniform. The storm grew ever darker. Thunder roared, and lightning struck the Sentry six times in a row.

His body was almost entirely obscured in darkness now. Shadows writhed about him. … and then a thousand tendrils of darkness burst from his body and flooded down towards the mutants on the ground. They scattered. Not quickly enough. Rachel Grey and Psylocke were impaled. All their fears, all their nightmares flashed before their eyes at once. The hold was broken. Divine and the Sentry were free.

Namor fell. Still more tendrils. Still more mutants impaled. Screams shook the very air as horror built upon horror.

Irma saw a tendril moving towards her, and another for each sister. Knew they could never escape it.

Karen slammed into the Sentry going somewhere near Mach 17. He tumbled head over heels for a mile in the air before he managed to right himself and arrest his movement. The tendrils retracted into the Sentry's shadow, and his skin cracked further, fire blazing around him, eyes glowing red as he turned to look at the newly arrived Kryptonian.

And suddenly, he seemed very lost, and very afraid. "... I can't stop it," he whimpered. "It's too much! I... I can't control it. It's coming back. The Void is..."

A blast of full strength heat vision nearly knocked Karen out of the sky. Her clothing half burned away, she whirled around to face Divine, who floated some one hundred yards distant.

"I was wondering when you'd show up," Divine said.

The molten cracks spread further through the Sentry's body, and he shuddered, a fiery nimbus appearing around him once more. "... Oh God... oh God help me...!" A yellow corona flared into being around his body, bringing with it horrific molten heat... and the power of a yellow star.

Karen could feel her energy stores being boosted by his presence. By whatever was happening. The corona grew more intense. The thrum of energy more dire.

"ENOUGH!" A girl's voice cried. The corona winked out. From Sentry's left eye blazed the tell-tale electric blue Phoenix emblem which was the sign of Rachel Grey using her powers.

"We're not going to let you hurt anyone else!" three voices said in unison. Irma. Phoebe. Celeste.

More voices joined in. Some Karen recognized, some she did not. Every telepathic X-Man had joined forces for an all-out assault on the Sentry's mind, and he was fighting them with every ounce of strength that he had.

Divine sized Karen up. "... Looks like it's just you and me now," she said.

Battle began between the two daughters of Krypton, and once again, the earth did tremble beneath their feet. The battle quickly became a mobile one, the Kryptonians pursuing each other at hypersonic speeds as they engaged in what was part brawl, part aerial dogfight across the face of three continents. It ended where the fight between Power Girl and Divine had begun, months ago and a few realities sideways: Antarctica.

Each was bruised and battered, and neither's clothing had survived, but Divine was the stronger of the two: she had absorbed more Solar energy, and though the impact of her trip to the sun had faded almost to nothing, there is space between the 'almost' and the 'nothing;' her blows were ever so slightly more telling.

Karen was losing.

But as she fought, as she evaded another piledriver blow, as she half-evaded another blast of heat-vision, Karen looked thoughtful.

"... What are you thinking?" Kara asked.

"That watching two gorgeous girls wrestling naked in the air across three continents is one of those 'things I want to see before I die' that I can now check off the list?" She swerved to avoid another blast of heat vision.

Kara rolled her eyes. "No. What are you thinking?"

"Something dumb," Karen replied, glancing down at the artifact that still adorned her left hand.

"No, Karen. Absolutely not. We'll find another way."

Karen smiled. "... There isn't another way."

She was slowing down. Her attacks coming in less quickly. She couldn't...

Divine moved in for the kill, seizing her by the throat with one hand.

Karen clasped the other with the Draconian Katra, and the world went dark. 

* * *

><p>Xander Harris woke suddenly to the sound of his parents arguing. He was in his bed, staring up at the ceiling of his parents' basement in Sunnydale. He sat up, then stood up, rubbing his head, and a sense of vertigo nearly overwhelmed him. His body felt... weird. His balance was off. Nothing moved the way it was supposed to. "... Ugh..." he muttered. "Maybe I shouldn't have eaten that last slice of pizza."<p>

The room slowly came into focus.

"... a waste of space, Jess. A fucking waste of space. You really think he's going to do a damn thing with his life except rot away in that basement?"

"How should I know? He's YOUR son. God knows he doesn't have anything in common with my side of the family."

His father's voice grew angrier. "The hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You know exactly what it means, Tony. If he's a worthless waste of space, it's because the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

"Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!" The sound of a fist hitting a face echoed down the basement stairs. Then again. Again. And again.

Then came a different sound. The sound of a woman crying.

Xander stood at the bottom of the stairs, paralyzed by shame and anger and hatred towards his parents, barely able to breathe. His emotions seemed to burrow down beneath his skin, wrapping over muscle, joining to ligaments, burrowing into nerve endings.

There was a strange fog flowing down the stairs from above. Light coming from the crack beneath the door.

"So," a voice said. "This is what you are."

Xander turned. A very ordinary looking man with short brown hair and dark brown eyes was leaning up against the wall. His garb was simple enough: a black t-shirt and black slacks.

"You're..."

The man smiled cheerfully. "Max," he said.

Xander shivered. "You're wrong. This isn't what I am. I've changed."

"Nobody ever really changes. Sure, you got put into that new body, and you thought it made you different. But deep down? This is what you are. This will always be what you are."

Xander shook his head. "... No."

"Doesn't work that way, son. Can't change the truth just by saying 'no.' You were given the powers of a Kryptonian. You didn't deserve them, but you got them. What did you do with that power that was worthwhile? Far as I can tell, jack shit. You sat around and let other people tell you what to do. They led you by the hand, and you didn't mind, because you're not a leader." Max smirked. "You're a whipping boy."

"I'm... I'm in Divine's mind," Xander muttered.

"Damn right you are, but if you think I went through all the effort of building a mind for my creation only for you to take up residence like a damned squatter the moment it becomes convenient, you've got another think comin'. You're in my world, son, and you're never going to leave this basement again."

Xander shook his head. The world flickered. Karen shook her head. Another flicker.

"Got some gender confusion going on there, do you?" Max asked, clearly amused. "Guess it's only natural if you've been living in Power Girl's body all this time. I'll leave you to sort it out. You've got plenty of time to work on it, after all. A Kryptonian exposed to the right sort of light can stick around for just this side of forever. So, have fun with that."

Max vanished.

The sound of Xander's mother, crying upstairs, filled the basement.

Xander looked up the stairs that led to the main level of the house. The distance between here and there seemed all but infinite, and a palpable aura of dread emanated from it, flowing down the stairs with the fog that grew thicker by the second.

He took the first step.

She took the second.

He took the third.

One step at a time, Xander ascended the stairwell. It was the hardest thing he had ever done, but he faced his dread and he forced his way through it, reached out for the door, opened it.

The light beneath the door pulsed, and all at once Karen found herself in the antarctic laboratory where Divine and Power Girl had once fought. Great glass tubes lined the walls, failed clones within each one. It was cold. There was a hole in the ceiling. The sound of a wailing infant came from further in.

"You're not Power Girl," a voice identical to her own said.

She turned. Divine was there. Angry. Glaring at her. Floating in mid-air.

"No, I'm not," Karen admitted.

"You don't have any right to wear that face."

"No, I don't," Karen admitted.

"Then why are you still wearing it?"

"Because..."

Buffy.  
>Willow.<br>Giles.  
>Cordelia.<br>Ben.  
>Noriko.<br>Julian.  
>Cessily.<br>Laurie.  
>David.<br>Irma.

"I see," Divine said. "You really think that makes a difference, though? You think that they can save you here?"

Karen shook her head. "... No." She walked towards the source of the crying.

"Stay away from her," Divine said. "You have no right to go in there."

"I know," Karen replied.

She stepped through the far door. The chamber beyond was a nursery. A child with dark hair not more than a few months old lay in a crib surrounded by bright shiny toys. It was a girl, and she was crying her lungs out, wailing, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"What is this?" Karen asked.

"That's Divine, of course," Max said, stepping out from behind the crib for all that there hadn't been room there to conceal his form. "You get it, right? You used that artifact. Poured yourself into her mind. I suppose your plan was to destroy her? Take her over from the inside?"

"... I never actually thought that far ahead," Karen replied.

Max sighed. "Then you're a fool. Doesn't matter if you've left that basement. The price of leaving here is one you'll never pay."

Immediately, Karen understood, and Xander as well. Indecision plagued her.

"You're not really going to kill a baby, are you?" It was Willow's voice.

"That's a bit beyond the pale, Xander." Buffy's voice.

"I think you should go back to your room." his father's voice.

Her father's.

No one to help her. Nothing to save her. An impossible choice.

"You're a whipping boy." It was Principal Snyder who spoke this time. "Raised by mongrels and set on a sacrificial slab."

"I'm..."

"Off you go, Xander," Max said. "Or Karen. Or whatever you want to be called."

The baby was still crying. Still wailing. Shrieking. Faces surrounded her. The eyes of everyone she had ever known, all telling her she was worthless. All telling her that she couldn't make this choice.

_"... You have it within you to be a hero,"_ Kara said. _"I believe in you, Xander."_

_"I believe in you,"_ Irma echoed a moment later.

Karen crossed the room to where the infant Divine wept in her crib. Looked down at her. It would be so easy. All she needed to do was pick up the pillow and smother the baby.

… but that's not what a hero does.

Karen scooped Divine up into her arms, rocked her gently, whispered, "I'm here now," and kissed her on the forehead.

The infant Divine stopped crying. Looked up. Smiled a toothless smile.

Karen felt the infant in her arms grow blazingly hot, but she didn't let go. Divine's form glowed like a star. And then Karen wasn't holding a baby. The thing in her arms was a thousand points of light, and so unbearably warm, but she embraced it all the same. It flowed into her body, the warmth spreading from the tips of her toes to the top of her head.

The warmth faded.

The room faded.

The world faded.

"...ren... Karen... Karen, are you with me? Is it you? Did it... work?"

Karen opened her eyes. She was lying on her back in a vast field of snow. Kara Zor-L stood over her, and for the first time, Kara was neither translucent nor ghostly.

"I feel weird," Karen muttered.

Kara laughed. "Can you stand?"

"... just... give me a minute..."

The world seemed to swim around her. She felt utterly drained. Like she could sleep for a week.

"Stay with me, Karen..."

She slipped into a dreamless slumber.

* * *

><p>Karen woke up in a hospital bed at the Xavier Institute. Her everything hurt. Muscles ached that she hadn't known she had. At first, all she saw was white. She blinked a few times, and she tried to rub at her eyes but lacked the strength to lift her hands. The world slowly gained definition. Sound returned to her. Touch. The blanket she was lying under was a soft and warm. The air was cold.<p>

"Welcome back," said a kindly voice.

She looked up into the blue eyes and muzzled face of Hank McCoy. "... Hey," she said.

"I'll tell the others that you're awake," Henry said.

"... I'm... not Divine," she managed, though it kind of hurt to talk.

Hank nodded. "Indeed not, Ms. Starr. If we thought you were Divine, you would be in cryo-storage. Kara explained the situation, and Ms. Frost has confirmed it."

Karen sank back into the bed. "...k," she said. She was asleep a few seconds later.

When she woke again, she felt better. Stronger. She was still in a hospital bed in the medical lab, but there was a light above her, and it felt... good. It felt like sunlight. She sat up, and then grabbed the blanket and pressed it against herself before it could leave her naked. "... Er, hello?"

As before, Hank McCoy was there. "Ah, excellent," he said as he checked her vitals. "I suspected the simulated sunlight might do some good. Not quite as effective as the real thing, I grant you, but still undeniably useful."

"... could I have some clothes, please?"

Hank blinked. "Oh. Yes, yes of course. I will send word."

Noriko and Kara Zor-L arrived five minutes later, Kara carrying a bundle of clothes under her arm.

It felt weird, looking at what had been her body from the outside. Karen felt a peculiar sense of vertigo. "Hey," she said.

"Hey," Kara said, offloading the clothes into Karen's arms. "How you feeling?"

"Better," Karen replied. "Weird. I dunno. How long was I out?"

"You were unconscious for six days, twelve hours, and thirty four minutes," Hank said cheerfully.

"Damn. That long?"

Kara and Noriko both nodded. Kara took the opportunity to draw the privacy curtain shut around Karen's bed, and Karen began to put on her clothes.

"So Nori, I guess I, er, kind of owe you and the others an explanation."

"Kara gave us the short version," Noriko said. "Chaos magic. Extradimensional portal. Two people stuck in the same body." She shook her head incredulously, and Karen saw it easily on account of her x-ray vision. "I can't imagine what that would have been like."

Karen stepped out from behind the curtain, fully dressed.

"That was quick," Noriko said.

"Super speed," Karen replied.

"So tell me, was that the craziest thing that ever happened to you?"

Karen thought about it. "... Inca mummy girl, preying mantis lady, possessed by a hyena..." she mused. She shrugged. "I'm gonna go with 'craziest long-term thing,' but not necessarily 'craziest thing'."

Noriko exchanged glances with Kara. "... Your life is weird," Nori said.

"You have no idea."

"So your real name's Xander?"

"OK, some idea," Karen conceded. "And it was, yeah. … but I think..." she looked down. "I think I might just be Karen Starr, now."

Kara raised an eyebrow.

"When I used that device on Divine, I... well, I think what I did might have had... repercussions."

"You're not wrong," Emma said as she walked into the room. Kara, Noriko, and Karen looked up. Stephen Strange was accompanying the headmistress, clad all in the robes of his station. "Ms. Ashida," Emma said.

"Uh... right. Leaving." She made good on that, heading out through the door, which shut behind her.

Karen felt a little uncomfortable. "... So. What now?"

"What indeed," Doctor Strange replied. "You have placed yourself in a difficult position, young lady. When you left the circle you forced me to ground a considerable amount of magical energy through my own body - an experience I am not eager to repeat. The vast majority of it was neutralized, but some clung to me, to the house, to you, and to the artifact. It represented … an instability. One which was made worse by the use of said artifact in the manner you chose to employ it."

Karen looked down. "... Sorry."

"Apology accepted," Stephen replied. "But it won't help you. I'm afraid the circumstances surrounding your transfer into that body, added to the dissolution of Divine's mind and the merging of her spirit with yours, have rendered any future attempt at body transfer unlikely at best."

"I'm stuck this way," Karen said.

"You knew?" Kara asked.

"I suspected," Karen replied. "But what else was I supposed to do? I couldn't just... kill her."

Kara smiled, and there was pride in her voice when she replied. "Yes, you could have. You could have killed her. You chose not to."

Karen looked mildly uncomfortable, but didn't dispute it. Her eyes widened suddenly. "What about the Sentry? Was anyone hurt?"

"Yes," Emma replies. "And some killed. But fewer than there might have been. We dealt with the Sentry. He will not be a problem again."

Karen blinked. "What does that mean?"

Emma gave Karen a level look. "It took all of us to stop him. Every telepath on the grounds, and using Cerebra to boost our power further. The amount of power unleashed was... considerable, and we still came within a hair's breadth of failure. We were indelicate. We stopped him at the cost of destroying his mind and rendering him effectively brain dead. His body discorporated shortly after."

Karen swallowed. "... Oh."

"Your situation," Emma said, "Is a bit more problematic. You now inhabit the body of one of the most wanted criminals on the planet. You can imagine that SHIELD, such as it is in its current, leaderless state, was not particularly interested in an explanation which involved mystical mind transfer. Things will be difficult for you here for the foreseeable future."

"I... I'll go."

Emma gave Karen a look that said, 'you just said the dumbest thing I've ever heard you say.' "We do not abandon our own simply because standing with them is difficult, Karen. We will see you through this."

Kara nodded. "You're not responsible for Divine's actions, and I won't let you go down for them."

Karen smiled.

"Which," Emma said, "Brings us back to 'what now?'"

Karen looked down. "... I need to tell my friends, for one. In my home dimension." She looked at Doctor Strange. "If that's still possible?"

Strange sighed. "Provided you promise not to break the circle, I suppose so. I'll begin the preparations. Come to me when you are ready."

As Doctor Strange left the room, Karen felt the weight of the last few days settling into her heart. "I guess it's not going to get any easier," she said.

"No," Emma replied. "But with all of that out of the way," Her expression hardened, and she looked Karen directly in the eye. "What, exactly, are your intentions towards Irma Cuckoo?"

And suddenly, Karen knew exactly what a rabbit felt like when it saw a hawk's shadow.

* * *

><p>It was a journey which had been a long time coming. What had begun on Halloween in another dimension now saw what once might have been its conclusion take shape: the portal had failed. A second portal was forged.<p>

Karen Starr - once Xander Harris - was going home. But she was going home to say goodbye. Her friends had gathered in the chamber overlooking the mystic circle. Noriko, Julian, Cessily, Laurie, Josh, Irma, a few others. Karen's lips still tingled from the kiss she and Irma had shared upon their reunion: a passionate affair which had been broken only by the sudden drop in room temperature which had accompanied the arrival of Celeste and Phoebe. There were problems yet to be faced, problems by the score. Not all of her friends had been as understanding as Noriko. Some were angry. But they were angry as **friends**.

Kara stood next to Karen in the circle. They were going together. They would return together. A journey to Xander's world to complete the circle.

The light built and built until it seemed blinding. The portal took them. Karen saw a whirling tunnel of light, and she fell. She fell and she fell and she fell, the tunnel howling around her, Kara at her side.

She landed on her butt. An accompanying crash told her that Kara had made the journey as well. They had arrived. They were in the library at Sunnydale High, directly over the spot which corresponded to the Hellmouth.

She rose to her feet.

"That's far enough," a familiar voice said from behind her.

She turned. Buffy was there, sword in hand. Behind her, Giles held a crossbow leveled at her heart. Willow was further back, watching from behind the library desk, and...

"I don't know who you are or what hell dimension you came from," Buffy said, "but a pair of demon Power Girl knock-offs are not putting up shop here. We're a non-shoppy hellmouth. Totally closed for business, got it?"

"I don't know, they look pretty busty to me." A beat. "... Friendly. I meant friendly." That voice was a familiar one, too. Very, very familiar. With a mounting sense of dread, Karen turned to look at the speaker.

Xander Harris stood in front of the book shelves, baseball bat in hand.

"What." Karen said.

Kara glanced worriedly at Karen.

Xander blinked. "What?"

Karen stared. "WHAT?"

_**The End. For Now.**_

* * *

><p>Author's notes:<p>

This concludes the first story arc. I'll be continuing this, but likely in the form of a sequel. I've got the first three chapters planned out already. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it.


	14. DU: Going Back Home

"OK, everyone needs to calm down," Kara said, the complete lack of fear in her voice at odds with her words. "Let's just put the weapons away and talk this out."

They were in the library still. Standing over the spot which corresponded to the Hellmouth. The portal that brought them here had snapped shut behind them. The other Xander lowered his baseball bat. Giles lowered his crossbow. Buffy didn't lower her sword. Willow stood behind the library desk, fidgeting with a second crossbow, looking nervous.

"OK. I'll bite. Demons don't usually make with the 'splainy," Buffy said. "You've got thirty seconds to explain why I shouldn't introduce you to the pointy end." She indicating her sword.

"Besides the fact that it wouldn't do anything?" Karen asked sarcastically.

Kara gave Karen an annoyed look. "Not helping," she muttered.

Twang! A crossbow bolt flew across the room and hit Kara dead center in her neck, but bounced off harmlessly. Everyone looked to Willow at the library desk, who drew her hands away from the crossbow she'd been fidgeting with, looking sheepish. "Sorry!"

"Not helping," Kara repeated, her irritation this time directed at Willow.

Buffy looked from Willow to Kara and back. "You're imperious to harm?"

Giles looked pained. "... Impervious..."

"Something like that," Kara replied.

"Huh," Buffy said. And then she took her sword and drove it into Kara's chest as hard as she could. The sword warped visibly, bent, and snapped in half a few inches above the hilt. Buffy lowered the broken weapon.

"... hey guys, let's do that thing where we listen to what they have to say," Xander said.

Buffy nodded faintly.

* * *

><p>Destination Unknown<br>by P.H. Wise  
>A Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossover fanfic<p>

Chapter 1: Going Home Again

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby. This is the second part of the 'New World' series and the sequel to 'New World in my View.' It will make little sense without having read part one.

* * *

><p>"You want the short version?" Karen asked.<p>

"Go ahead," Buffy said.

"I'm Xander."

All eyes went to a mortified looking Xander, then to Karen. "... OK, let's try the long version," Buffy said.

Karen looked to Xander, then. "Remember Halloween?"

Xander blushed. "Er..."

Willow blinked. "Xander lost that bet to Cordelia, and had to go dress as... oh. OH!"

"Dear Lord!" Giles said. "When Xander turned into Power Girl, it never occurred to us that Power Girl might be a real person beyond the context of the spell. Spirit possession by a living being is all but unheard of. As far as I know, the only tradition to actually practice such a thing is that of the Primals."

Both Karen and Xander shuddered at that. "I thought we were done with hyena spirits?" they both said at once, then looked at each other, then glared.

"We are," Giles replied. "The hyena spirit was driven out. No trace of it remains."

Karen and Xander both breathed a sigh of relief.

"... so how can there be two of us, and one in... is that Divine's body?" Xander asked.

Karen nodded. "Er... yeah."

"I always thought that part of the writing was kind of weak," Xander said. "I mean, why introduce this character if you're never going to use it again? Stupid continuity reboot."

"Tell me about it," Karen muttered.

Kara Zor-L's eye twitched slightly. "Continuity reboot...? OK, can we stop talking about my life like it's a comic book?"

And then it really occurred to everyone exactly who Kara was. Well, everyone who wasn't Giles. Willow's eyes widened. Xander blushed. Buffy stared.

"Something I said?" Kara asked.

"Y...y... you're Power Girl!" Willow squeaked.

The corners of Kara's lips twitched upwards in a ghost of a smile. "Yes, for many years now."

Xander twitched slightly at that. "You told her about Incan mummy girl?" he asked faintly.

"I was stuck in her body for three months," Karen replied. "I kind of told her everything."

Xander started to hyperventilate.

"OK, not EVERYTHING."

Xander seemed to calm down. "I think we need to take a step back. How do we know you are who you say you are?"

Buffy nodded in agreement. "Yeah. You're Power Girl? Prove it!"

"You're wearing a black bra that's a bit too big for you," Kara said.

"So what, you can see a strap or something..."

"Uh, Buffy?" Willow asked. "You're wearing a sweater."

Buffy looked down at herself and blinked.

"X-Ray vision," Kara said. "Want me to freeze something or light it on fire, or are we good?"

"I'm..." Xander began. Karen and Kara both looked at him. He glared. "OK, maybe she's really Power Girl, but no way are you me. Tell me something only I would know."

Karen met Xander's gaze. "Yellow bra," she said.

Xander blinked. "... What?"

"We finally figured out Willow was a girl in September of freshman year. We bent over to look at her paper while she was tutoring us and there was some neckline gapage on her t-shirt, and really pale chest, and she was wearing a yellow bra, and then it hit us: 'Wow, Willow's a girl'. Not that we did anything about it, because we're an idiot, but yeah."

Xander turned beet red. Willow did the same.

"You mean I..." Willow began, "And you... and then... grr!" She punched Xander on the arm, then Karen, and then immediately clenched her teeth in pain. "... oww."

Totally mortified, Xander looked anywhere in the room except at Willow. "OK, I'm convinced. This isn't... this isn't so bad." He turned to Power Girl. "I'm Xander. That's Buffy, she's Willow, and that's Giles." He indicated each one when he spoke their name. "Er, it's nice to meet you?"

Kara smiled bemusedly. "Nice to meet you," she replied.

"Yeah," Karen said, "No offense or anything, but why aren't you an empty shell of a body that's been comatose for three months waiting for me to come back and jump into the body again?"

Xander's eyes widened at that. "Er... can you DO that?"

"Not anymore, no, but the point still stands."

The Scoobies exchanged glances. "I assure you, Xander," Giles began, then frowned.

"She-Xander?" Buffy suggested. She brightened. "Ooh, how about Xandra?"

Xander shuddered, and then Karen shuddered. "I've been going by Karen for a while now," Karen said. "Might as well keep it going."

"...Karen," Giles continued, "That we shall do everything in our power to discover exactly how and why you became, well, yourself."

"In the meantime," Buffy said. The bell rang. "...We've got class to go to. You two should lay low and try not to let Snyder see you. He's not the most understanding guy when it comes to non-students wandering around on campus."

"Got it," Karen said. "Low profile. Avoid Snyder while we're out and about."

"You two can't just walk around the school, can you?" Willow asked. "People would notice."

Karen exchanged glances with Kara. "Notice what?" she asked. Kara looked pained.

"I hate to break it to you, Xande... Karen," Buffy amended quickly, "But you're not exactly, you know, Xander-shaped any more."

Xander and Karen both looked uncomfortable with that reference. Each remembered quite clearly the circumstances of the last time Buffy had used that particular phrase. Neither really cared to be reminded that Buffy totally saw them as 'one of the girls,' though Xander was more uncomfortable with the idea than Karen was.

"OK, yeah, I'm a girl now. But..." she caught sight of Kara, then, and saw what her body looked like - really saw, instead of just the standard 'that's my body' reaction. "Oh," she said, blushing. "This IS still Sunnydale, though, isn't it? People totally ignore vampires and werewolves, right?"

"Ignoring supernatural evil in your midst is one thing," Willow said, "Ignoring that body? That's kind of impossible." All eyes turned to Willow, and she blushed. "I may be straight, but I'm not blind!" she said, and blushed even deeper.

Giles cleared his throat. "I'm afraid I have to agree that we should make an effort to not cause a scene, and two, ah, Power Girls would certainly do that."

"Giles, appearances to the contrary, it's me!" Karen grinned. "I can be totally discreet."

Giles sighed. "Just use the back exit or the skylight, please?"

"Di-screet," Karen repeated.

The late bell rang a moment later, and the others fled, leaving Giles, Karen, and Kara behind as they went off to class. Karen exchanged glances with Kara. "... Come on, I'll show you around town," Karen said.

Kara smiled. "Sure."

They flew up to the skylight, opened it, and slipped out into the afternoon sun.

Now alone, Giles walked back to his office, sat down, poured himself a cup of tea from his thermos, and downed it in one shot.

* * *

><p>It was funny how small Sunnydale seemed from the sky. It only took a few minutes to get from one side to the other. It felt liberating to be up here, the whole town beneath them, their Kryptonian eyes able to focus on every detail as easily as single points. They'd flown the length of the town three times in twelve minutes before Karen finally descended, Kara following close behind.<p>

They landed in front of the Harris residence. "OK," Karen said. "Hopefully they wont be home, but we better check." She glanced Kara-wards. "You sure you want to see this?"

Kara smiled. "Afraid to show your sister your old house?" she asked.

Karen shook her head. "No, I just..." she shrugged, walked to the door, and knocked twice, hoping for no answer.

They both saw Tony Harris coming. X-Ray vision plus super hearing. Karen was visibly disappointed. Soon enough, he opened the door, looking unusually sober, stared at the two girls for a moment, then asked, "... Who're you?"

Karen smiled a fake smile, the impact of seeing her father again hitting her like a punch to the gut. "We're, uh, friends of Xander's. Is he home?"

Tony Harris rubbed his head and scowled. "He'd better not be. It's only one thirty. School doesn't get out until..." he trailed off, seeming to take in the two gorgeous young women at his door. "You're friends of Xander's?"

Karen nodded. "Yup. I can definitely say that we're familiar with the guy."

Tony grinned. "I never thought he had it in him."

"Mind if we come in, Mr. Harris?" Kara asked.

"Hell," Tony said, "Sure. He's still at school at the moment, but you can wait for him downstairs if you want. He'll be home in about an hour." His grin widened. "Twins!" he said, stepping out of the way. "And here I was worried he was gay."

Karen tried very hard not to glare at the man who had been her father.

"Hey Jess!" Tony called. "Xander's dating identical twins! Come meet them!"

"What?" Jessica Harris shouted from further inside the house.

Kara was trying not to laugh. Karen was trying and failing not to glare. Tony didn't seem to notice.

After about twenty minutes of embarrassing questioning from Xander's parents, Karen and Kara finally made their way down to the basement, shutting the door behind them. Karen sighed with relief, and floated down to the bottom of the stairs.

"Your parents are... interesting," Kara said as she followed Karen down the stairs.

Karen shuddered.

Kara glanced about at the basement room. "So, this is where you lived?"

Karen looked embarrassed. "... yeah. I know it's not much to look at, but once you get used to it, it's still exactly as much of a dump as it looks."

"Ah," Kara said. A pause. "You have a... cartoon Superman poster?"

Karen blushed. "...Don't judge me."

Kara walked to the bed and scooped up a comic book from Xander's bed, spotted a picture of the Flash on the front, and looked at it as if it were a snake. "This is one of those comics you were talking about," she said.

Karen nodded.

Kara looked at the cover. "Everything you know will change in a flash, huh?" She dropped it, spotted several issues of Power Girl lying on the bed, picked up the first of them, opened it. "This is..." She paged through the comic book, then picked up the next one, paged through, then the next one. She frowned. "Is it just me, or does this Amanda Conner person really like drawing me naked?"

Karen smirked, but kept her mouth shut. A moment later, Kara picked up the next Power Girl comic and blinked. "Holy artistic style change," she said.

"Batman," Karen said.

Kara glanced Karen's way. "Huh?"

"You're supposed to finish that statement with 'Batman.' Like, 'holy artistic style change, Batman!'"

Kara Zor-L raised an eyebrow. "Why would I say that...?"

"... Never mind."

* * *

><p>"Hello?" asked the man's voice on the other end of the line.<p>

"Yes, this is Rupert Giles calling. I should like to speak to Quentin Travers, please."

A pause. He waited for nearly five minutes before Quentin picked up.

"Rupert? Has something happened with your Slayer?"

"Mr. Travers, forgive me, but this is... something unprecedented has occurred, and I felt it prudent to take it to you directly."

"You have my attention."

"Are you familiar with the Rites of Janus?" Giles asked.

The sudden stillness on the other end of the line was all the confirmation Giles needed. He took a breath. "Three months ago, a chaos mage by the name of Ethan Rayne performed the Rites of Janus. He was... interrupted before they could be carried to their conclusion, but the chaos he created in the meantime was significant."

"My God, man," Quentin said. "A chaos mage performs one of the most dangerous rituals in existence on top of an active Hellmouth, and you waited three months to tell us?"

"It took this long for any long term consequences to show themselves," Giles replied. "Now, the next bit is somewhat difficult to believe, but I'd ask you to bear with me. … tell me, how much do you know about American comic books?"

Quentin's incredulity could be heard through the telephone line quite clearly. "... Go on," he said.

Giles did. And what Quentin told him afterwards was not what he wanted to hear. Truth rarely is. Which brought him to one of the most difficult decisions he had ever made.

A young man approached his desk. Short. Spiked blonde hair. Rather scrawny. Nervous looking. "... You wanted to see me Mr. Giles?"

Giles turned. "Yes, Mr. Wells. It appears I am rather in need of information about..." he cringed internally. "Comic books."

Andrew Wells lit up with a grin. "Oh. Oh! You've come to the right person!"

Giles smiled politely. "Yes, well. Tell me about Power Girl, if you please."

"Pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, or modern?" Andrew asked.

Giles sighed. "Start at the beginning." Those were words he would regret saying.

* * *

><p>The school bell had just rung signalling the release of students for the day, and Karen was back on the campus of Sunnydale High. Kara Zor-L had promised to meet her at the library.<p>

For Karen, walking the halls of Sunnydale High once more was... odd. It wasn't that everything was different. Some things were different. Like being followed by the eyes of almost every guy (and some of the girls) in the hallway, and having most of the girls size her up like she was competition. That was, ok, that was really disturbing, and it had happened at the Xavier Institute, but that hadn't been HER school. … And so much was still the same. The surfers were still the surfers.

"... and then she was all, 'like, no way!' and he was all, 'yes way!' and then I'm like, 'I saw it! He caught the most radical wave and surfed it all the way to shore! I was so stoked for him!' and she was like, 'woah.' He's so totally getting some tonight."

The jocks were still the jocks.

"Dude! If we take three more games, and we can avoid having any more of our key players mysteriously die, we could take the state championship this year!"

And the Cordettes were still the Cordettes.

"Can you believe Cordelia? I swear, every time she's seen with that boy, her social status falls a little lower. I mean, Cordelia with Xander Harris? It's like she's deliberately trying to be uncool!"

Karen walked into a trashcan, almost tripped over it, managed to recover, and turned to stare at Harmony, ignoring the giggles of the Cordettes at her display of inattentive clumsiness. "...What?" she asked. "Go back to the part where Cordelia is dating Xander Harris?"

Harmony gave Karen a disparaging look. "Is there some reason you're talking to us? You must be new, because no way are you cool enough to be talking to us."

It was funny. Before she'd gone away, as Xander, he'd hated the Cordettes. Now, though, they just seemed... well, kind of sad. She looked Harmony in the eye. "Xander," she said, "Dating Cordelia. Details. Now."

"Fine," Harmony said, giving her friends a look that said, 'God, can you believe this girl?' "She started dating Xander like back in November or something, all right? They tried to keep it secret, but everyone knows they're totally connected at the lip now. It's kind of gross."

"Right." Karen walked off down the hall towards the library.

"Um, you're welcome!" Harmony said, trying for sarcasm but coming off more as petulant. She looked to her friends, then. "You know what this school doesn't need? More crazy girls like Buffy." The others all nodded in agreement.

* * *

><p>Karen walked into the library. The Scoobies, plus Cordelia and Jenny Calendar were already there waiting for her.<p>

"Hey," she called. Then she raised an eyebrow. "... Cordelia? What are you doing here?"

"Besides practicing downward social mobility?" Cordelia asked.

"Same old Cordy," Karen muttered.

Cordelia gave Karen a searching look. "Do I know you?"

The others exchanged glances, and Karen gave Giles a pleading look. "Does she really have to be here?" she asked.

"Hey, if something apocalypty is going on, I've got just as much a right to know as the rest of you," Cordelia said.

Giles sighed. "I think you should sit down, Karen."

Karen grimaced. "Can we wait for Kara? I kind of want her to be here."

Giles nodded his assent.

An awkward silence descended.

"OK," Cordelia said, looking annoyed, "Spill, people. Who's tall dark and busty?"

Xander, Buffy and Willow exchanged glances. Buffy was the one who spoke. "Cordy, do you remember when you won that bet with Xander on Halloween?"

Cordy grinned. "And he had to wear that Power Girl costume?"

"Right, so you remember. Well..." Buffy gestured to Karen. "That's, er..."

Cordy put two and two together, her eyes going wide. "... Xander?" Then she looked at Xander, then back at Karen, and she grinned a Cheshire grin. "Oh, wow. So which one's the real Xander?"

"We were kind of trying to figure that out," Willow said.

Cordy walked up to Karen, then, looking her up and down with an evaluating eye. "So this is Xander as a girl, except hot, and with a passing grade in fashion sense?" she asked.

"Hey!" Xander and Karen said simultaneously.

"Wow," Cordy said. "And someone had work done. Not a bad job, though. Can I have your surgeon's number? You know, just in case?"

Karen followed Cordy's gaze to her own breasts, blushed, and muttered, "... They're real."

"Get out!"

"Seriously," Karen said.

Cordelia copped a feel, her expression going from disbelieving to jealous in the space of a few seconds. "Huh. Lucky bitch."

Karen stared at Cordy, her eyes as wide as they could go, feeling kind of violated and weirdly turned on, the feel of Cordy's hand on her breast through her clothing lingering long after the hand was removed. "..."

Xander fainted, and was saved from hitting the ground head first only by Buffy's quick action.

"Cordy, that was mean," Buffy said.

Cordelia grinned. "Fun, though." She turned to the others. "OK, so Xander's got a girl copy. Or a boy copy. Or something. Anything else I've missed?"

The skylight opened, then. A moment later, Power Girl descended in full costume, landing next to Karen. "Hey," Power Girl said. "I miss anything?

"Besides Cordelia copping a feel?" Buffy asked.

Power Girl's eyes went from Karen to Cordelia and back. "... Besides that," she said.

"Nope. We were just starting.

"OK," Cordelia said, "Xander's got two girl copies." A pause as she considered the new girl, "...One of which is wearing a Power Girl costume." Another pause. "You're Power Girl, aren't you?"

Power Girl smiled at that. "Yup. If you see some really weird news reports tonight? Sorry. There was a bus full of school children, and I couldn't let it crash into that jack-knifed semi."

Giles looked up from the conversation he'd been having with Jenny Calendar. "Are we all here, then? Good." He turned to Karen. "I think you may wish to sit down."

Karen exchanged glances with Kara, then looked back at Giles. "Not the best way you could have started the conversation," she said.

"I thought it appropriate," Giles said, "In light of what I've managed to piece together."

Karen grinned, though it was more to hide her own discomfort than anything else. "If you're about to tell me that he's dating Cordelia," she gestured to the only just recovering Xander, "I already know." A beat. "Are we sure your Xander isn't an evil robot? Or an evil shape shifting demon?"

"We checked," Willow said. "100% Xander."

"Hey," Cordelia said, "Don't talk about me like I'm syphilis. You'd be lucky to get a girl like me!"

Karen immediately thought of Irma, then of a combination of Irma and Cordelia, was rather disturbed by the thought, and shook her head. "OK Giles. Hit me."

"... I've just had a long talk with Mr. Wells," Giles said.

The others blinked. "Tucker?" Buffy asked.

"Andrew," Giles replied. At the uncomprehending looks of the others, he sighed. "Tucker's brother."

"I didn't know Tucker had a brother," Willow said.

"Apparently, he sent a pack of flying monkey demons to attack the school play," Giles said.

Buffy blinked. "Oh. … I thought the director was just being really ambitious. You know, giving a new spin on an old top. Romeo and Juliet, with flying monkeys."

Giles looked pained. "Yes, well, as I was saying, it appears that Mr. Wells is something of an expert on all things comic book related. Between what I was able to learn from him and what I was able to glean from my conversation with the head of the Watcher's Council, I think I have an idea of what happened to create two Xanders."

He had their attention.

"Miss, ah, Power Girl, correct me if I'm wrong, but are you not the only survivor of a dead universe?"

Power Girl looked down. "... Yeah. It was... a long time ago."

"According to Mr. Wells, after the death of her old universe, the new universe did not quite know how to incorporate Power Girl into itself. She was... unique. A being who transcended universes. Not simply the last of her kind, but the last fragment of her entire reality." Giles paused. "Until Ethan Rayne performed the Rites of Janus. One of the most dangerous rituals in all existence, performed by a chaos sorcerer over an active Hellmouth." He looked to Karen, then. "Immediately after Halloween, were you in this body, or in hers?" he gestured to Power Girl.

"... I was stuck in her body for months," Karen said. "I only got this one recently."

"As I suspected," Giles said. "I'm afraid this is not good news for you, Karen. When the Rites of Janus were performed, the ritual latched on to the original Power Girl. Ordinarily, it would simply have created a copy of her consciousness, and one that would fade as soon as the spell had ended. In this case, the being being copied is singular, unique within the multiverse. I suspect that her actual self and physical body were drawn across the void that separates realities, merging the two of you for the duration of the spell. I suspect that when the spell ended, Xander and Power Girl separated, but at that moment, Xander's consciousness was... copied, I suppose."

"... So... what?" Karen asked, her voice thick with emotion. "I'm... a copy? A side-effect of a really unlikely chain of events?"

"A perfect copy," Giles confirmed. "I am sorry. Chaos magic has always been known to have... unanticipated side-effects. At the moment of separation, well, two minds in one body became two minds in two bodies. The perfect copy of Power Girl's consciousness in Xander's mind immediately faded into the background as intended, but the version of you in her mind... stayed."

The Scoobies were looking at her with pity in their eyes. Karen couldn't meet their gazes.

"... I need to..." Karen began. There was an emptiness inside her after hearing those words. An awful terror rose up within her belly, flowing up into the top of her head. "I need to get some air," she said. She flew away through the skylight.

Power Girl glanced at the assembled Scoobies. "I'll go after her," she said, and followed.

* * *

><p>Power Girl found Karen sitting on the roof of the PE building, staring down at the now mostly abandoned campus.<p>

"I feel real," Karen said as Power Girl set down beside her.

"You are," Power Girl said. "Don't ever doubt it. No matter what your origins, you're here now, and you're alive. You might not have been, but you are. You're alive." She drew Karen into a hug. "That's a complicated thing, and sometimes a sad thing, and it's the best thing in any universe."

Karen wept. Tears flowing down her cheeks. It was something she hadn't done since before all of this began. There was no pretense, here. No defensiveness. She cried, and Power Girl stayed with her, murmuring words of comfort until she had cried her last tear.

Sundown. A time looked forward to by Vampires and Slayers alike. The beginning of night's dominion. The moment when residents of Sunnydale felt that thrill of danger go through them which quickened their steps towards one another, seeking shelter in numbers and behind thresholds. Tomorrow was Friday, but many would not live to see it.

"I've got a surprise for you," Power Girl said. "Remember when you were out for six days after you wound up in that body?"

Karen nodded.

Power Girl produced something black, red, and silver. Held it out. Let it unfold.

A costume. A mirror of her own, save only the differences in color scheme.

Karen stared.

"I had them made while you were out. Dr. McCoy used a material called 'unstable molecules.' Neat concept. Short version: these costumes will stand up to pretty much any punishment you can throw at them."

Karen took the costume. Stared at it. "... I think I'd be embarrassed to wear..."

Power Girl raised an eyebrow.

Karen smiled. "Thanks, Kara."

"Come on," Power Girl said. "We need to find a place to …" she trailed off as her super-hearing picked up a scream for help. She exchanged glances with Karen.

Karen nodded. "... Go," she said. "I'll... I'll help as soon as I can."

* * *

><p>Pretty girl on the wrong side of town takes a wrong turn and ends up raped, murdered, or worse. It was a depressingly common story in Sunnydale, but even so, Rachel Myers had never expected it to happen to her. She'd been walking home from a music lesson after school. She played the clarinet. She wore her backpack, carried her instrument case, was whistling as she walked.<p>

The sun went down, and its setting brought with it that familiar sense of cold dread. The knowledge that predators waited in the night. The shadows lengthened. She could see movement out of the corner of her eye. She needed to get home, right now!

Rachel took a short cut. It was stupid. She never should have left the main road, but she did. She cut through a back alley that would cut two full blocks off the distance she needed to walk. There was a manhole halfway down the alleyway, a high fence on either side. Her parents' apartment was close. Once she got to the far end, she'd be able to see it. She just needed to...

The sound of metal grinding against concrete right next to her send chills through her body. Panic rising, she sprinted away. or tried to.

A cold hand seized her by the ankle, and when she tried to run, she fell flat on her face.

She was screaming. She could feel its breath against her ankle. Feel the second hand grabbing her other, frantically kicking leg. Feel the cold concrete against her skin. "NO! NO! LET ME GO! HELP, SOMEBODY, PLEASE!"

Nobody was coming. Calling for help in Sunnydale was a joke. Nobody was coming.

The sun was setting. She could see the sunlight fading, barely hitting the tops of the buildings now. She looked back, saw the monster that had grabbed hold of her, and she screamed in utter despair.

A figure in red white and blue descended from above.

"... what?" she asked. Her breath caught in her throat.

Power Girl descended, seized the vampire which had been attacking her, and flung it headlong into the fading sunlight. It burst into flames in mid-flight, and then ashes.

Rachel looked up into the most perfect blue eyes she had ever seen.

"You all right, miss?" Power Girl asked.

Rachel giggled. "... I... you... you're Supergirl?"

"Power Girl," Power Girl corrected with a smile.

"You're real! And you're here!"

"Just for today," Power Girl replied. "Come on, let's get you home."

* * *

><p>All across Sunnydale, the reports began to come in. Something was happening. Something very strange. Something wonderful. Two girls. One in red white and blue, one in red, black and silver. Saving the day. A collapsing crane at the Sunnydale docks, its operator saved by a dark haired girl in red, black and silver. A greyhound bus being attacked by vampires, the people on it saved by a blonde girl in red white and blue. Two teenaged girls about to be sacrificed to a serpent-demon unexpectedly saved, the demon slain. Dozens of ordinary lives which otherwise would have ended, saved. Saved by two figures out of a dream.<p>

Mayor Richard Wilkins the third read each report as it came in, and he frowned, deeply disturbed by what he had read. "Well now," he said. "That's just unacceptable."

Across town, Drusilla shrieked in terror, extracting promises from Angelus and Spike alike not to set foot outside of their lair until the sun-girls were gone.

* * *

><p>It was hours before tiredness drove Power Girl and Karen to seek shelter. Around one in the morning, Willow Rosenberg awoke from a fitful slumber to the sound of someone tapping on her window.<p>

Two figures floated in the air outside. Her scream was halfway out of her throat before she recognized them: Power Girl and Karen. She rubbed her eyes, went to the window and opened it. "Karen?" she asked. A pause. "What are you **wearing**?"

Karen blushed. "Er... not much, apparently. Look, Willow, old buddy old pal, can we, er, we kind of don't have anywhere to sleep, and I was wondering..."

Willow rubbed her eyes again. "I'll get the sleeping bags," she said. She didn't invite them in: she was a Sunnydale resident, after all. She just stepped away from the window and went over to the closet to dig out a pair of sleeping bags. When she'd gotten them and unrolled them on the floor, she fished a couple of pillows out and tossed them down before turning back towards the two superheroines in her home. "Does Buffy know you guys were out there doing her job?" Willow asked.

"I doubt she'd mind," Karen said.

"Er, you don't happen to have..." Kara began.

"Clothes that would fit you? … No. But you can take a shower if you want, and if your costumes need to be washed, laundry's downstairs."

"Thanks," Kara said, and headed out. The sound of the shower began a few moments later.

Willow was awake now. Kind of hard not to be with a naked Power Girl in your shower. She gave a mental frown at that. That was kind of a funny thought to have. "Have you eaten at all today?" Willow asked.

"Er, sort of. And by sort of I mean 'no'."

Willow rolled her eyes. "Come on." She led Karen downstairs, more than a little aware of Karen's scantily clad, very female body only a few feet behind her. "... So what's it like? Being a girl now? And being a superhero? Which is weirder?"

Karen grinned. "They're both pretty weird, but... I dunno. You get used to it. Being able to fly never gets old, but after a while, you can kind of forget that you've got x-ray vision if you really... ok, that's a lie."

Willow blinked. "X-Ray vision?" she asked. Then Willow panicked. "You keep your eyes somewhere else, Mr! Miss! … Xander!"

"Karen," Karen corrected. "And I'm not actually looking at you naked, Will."

"Yeah, but you COULD be."

Karen opened the fridge. Only thing that was ready was potato-pancakes with applesauce. Karen raised an eyebrow.

"My parents kind of weren't here for Hanukkah, and when they were here a few days ago, my mom wanted to..." Willow trailed off. "Want some latkes?

Karen smiled. "Sure," she said. "The rest of that, though... being a girl? I dunno. It's like being a guy, I guess, except different."

Willow served up some latkes on a plate and stuck them in the microwave. "That's not helpful. You're one of the only people ever to experience life as both genders, and the best you can do is 'it's the same, but different'?"

"They should have sent a poet," Karen deadpanned.

Willow rolled her eyes.

The timer soon dinged, and the latkes were served with applesauce. Karen dug in with relish.

"So what's your superhero name?" Willow asked.

Karen paused between bites. "Huh. Good question. Probably not 'Divine'."

"Too self-serving?" Willow asked.

"Long story," Karen replied.

"Oh, oh, how about Nightwing? Cause you've got a black costume and everything."

Karen raised an eyebrow. "Pretty sure that one's taken." She frowned. "Unless it's not. Is he Batman now? Or Red Robin? Or... you know, comic book continuity was way more fun before it became real life."

"Hey," Kara said as she walked down the stairs, wrapped in a towel that hid her assets only poorly, walked into the laundry room, and deposited her uniform in the washing machine. "You're gonna want to hurry up and take your shower, Karen," Kara called. "I'm gonna leave it for you to start when you're ready." She walked back out into the kitchen. "Hey, I'm gonna dry off and get ready for bed," she said. A pause. "You going to eat that?" she asked, gesturing to the other half of the plate of latkes.

Karen handed the plate to Kara, whose towel slipped down around her waist as she took it.

Willow stared. "... um... hi... er, I'm..." she began to blush.

Kara made short work of the plate, then headed back upstairs. "Night!" she said.

Willow continued to stare.

Karen looked at Willow, then towards Kara's departing form, then back to Willow. "Will, don't take this the wrong way..."

Willow looked at Karen. "Huh? What is it?" There was a touch of nervousness to her voice.

Karen trailed off. "... Never mind."

* * *

><p>Sunrise, and the double Ks woke with the dawn. They couldn't not at this point. Stupid Kryptonian physiology. Willow looked like she'd finally fallen asleep. Karen had been kind of worried about her, what with all the restless shifting she'd done in her sleep, plus the trip she'd to the bathroom she'd made to take a shower at 4:00 AM.<p>

Taking care not to wake Willow, Karen and Kara, naked as the day they were born, rose to their feet and walked downstairs to get their costumes out of the laundry.

"... You ever think maybe we should carry around backup costumes for when one needs washing? Like in a ring or something, like the Flash?" Karen asked as she put on her costume.

Kara shrugged. "We could look into it," she said. "I bet Hank could figure something out."

Karen nodded. A brief breakfast and a note for Willow later, they set out across the town, each with different destinations.

"Hey Cordy," Karen said as Cordelia emerged onto the front porch of her home. It was getting towards eight in the morning, and the Chase estate was shining with the morning dew.

Cordelia turned, raised an eyebrow. "Xand... Karen? What do you want?"

"Just, you know, saying goodbye. The spell that brought us here is only good for twenty four hours."

"Twenty four hours, huh?" Cordelia asked as she walked to her car. Karen followed. Then, standing in front of her car, Cordelia turned, took Karen into her arms, and kissed her. Karen's eyes went wide. Then they went a bit wider as Cordelia's tongue... Oh hell, her toes were curling.

Cordelia broke the kiss. "... Nope, still straight."

Karen stared. "What the HELL?"

"I was curious," Cordy said. "And it's not cheating. I'm dating Xander. You're Xander, sort of. And hey, it's not like you can tell anyone."

"I … OK, I get that, but 'nope, still straight?'"

Cordelia shrugged. "Seemed like my best chance to check without perving on someone in the locker room who I might actually see around school."

"I... you can't just... gah!"

Cordelia got into her car, started it, and drove away, leaving a spluttering, confused, and kind of turned on Karen in her wake.

* * *

><p>It was over almost too soon. Hour passed to hour, and soon Karen and Kara stood over the spot corresponding to the Hellmouth at Sunnydale High once more.<p>

"I guess this is it," Karen said.

"Guess it is," Xander replied. "Hey, listen, for what it's worth, I'm..."

"Don't apologize," Karen said.

Xander nodded. "Right. Anyways, I guess, try to avoid getting retconned out of existence, OK? And good luck."

Karen smirked. "You too." Then she looked to Giles. "Take care of yourself, Giles," she said, "And of the others, ok?"

"Be well, Karen," Giles replied.

Then Willow was there, hugging her within an inch of her life. "Stay safe, Karen."

Then it was just Buffy. "Take care of yourself, Karen," she said, giving the much taller girl a hug. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Karen grinned. "I'll see what I can do."

"Is Cordelia coming?" Xander asked.

"Already talked to her," Karen said, and blushed.

Xander raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Then he blinked. "Oh! Right! I almost forgot!" He pulled out an extra backpack and offered it to Karen, who took it with a dubious look. "It's... well, it's a bunch of issues of comics you might find, er, useful."

Karen passed it over to Kara, who frowned. "That's pretty dangerous..." Kara said.

The glow rose up around them, then. The portal formed on top of the two, helped along by the presence of the Hellmouth.

"Say hi to Superman for me!" Xander called, "And watch out for the continuity reboot!"

Karen blinked. "Oh, we haven't actually been in the DC..."

The portal took them.

_**End Chapter 01**_

* * *

><p>Author's notes:<p>

So I decided to just keep posting this onto the New World in my View thing on on account of lacking a 'series' function.


	15. DU: Mercury Falling

_Earth 616  
>Sanctum Sanctorum<br>New York, New York_

"It's been over a day since you brought me back! Where is she, Doctor?"

"I don't know."

"How come I think you do?"

Those words, so very similar to others spoken months before: Hawkeye, returned to life, asking after the location of the Scarlet Witch.

But this wasn't chaos magic. Despite the lingering scent of chaos which clung to Karen and Kara both, refusing to fade no matter the time or distance from the event which had joined them together three months previous, this wasn't that. This was something... older. Older than Order and Chaos. Older, perhaps, than magic. The portal had flared green at the end.

He looked upon Kara Zor-L, beheld the traces of chaos magic which clung to her. He understood all at once. Kara and Karen. They were connected still. They inhabited separate bodies, but each could still function as a sympathetic link to the other. A link he could use.

"I don't know where she is, but with your help, I believe I can find her."

Kara nodded. "Anything I can do," she replied. "Just bring her back."

This had gone on too long. He had other responsibilities. Too much time was being devoted to this. "Please be seated. This may take a few hours."

It took six. Six hours of chanting. Of searching. Of focusing. Of trying very hard to ignore the twenty students from the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning chatting in the foyer. Why they ALL wanted to be here was beyond him. … Six exhausting hours, but it paid off in the end. The portal opened, and Karen returned. There was a... resistance. A difficulty locking on. But then, the light of the portal was fading, and Doctor Strange felt as though he had just run three back to back marathons.

Karen was home.

Kara smiled, rising to her feet and moving forward to welcome her fellow Kryptonian. "Welcome back," she said. A beat passed, her smile faded, and she raised an eyebrow. "Are you wearing a dress?"

* * *

><p>Destination Unknown<br>by P.H. Wise  
>An X-Men crossover fanfic<p>

Chapter 2: Mercury Falling, Part I

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby. This chapter contains some dialogue from New X-Men #33 and #34. Marvel owns those, too.

* * *

><p>"Are you wearing a dress?"<p>

"I don't want to talk about it," Karen said as she and Kara walked out into the foyer. Immediately, Karen stopped short, staring at the sight of no less than twenty students from the Xavier Institute there to meet her. And it was true: Karen had arrived in a red plaid pattern halter dress. And fishnets. And makeup. And hair extensions that brought her hair down to her shoulders. And sneakers. And she looked gorgeous. And for all that the outfit was actually pretty comfortable, she felt like a fool wearing it.

"Hey Karen," Cessily called.

"See?" one student whispered to another. "She does wear dresses, sometimes!"

"Woah," another student whispered, "She really DID end up in that other body."

"I've still got $20 on her being like a Skrull imposter or something," whispered a fourth.

"We like your new look, Karen," the Cuckoos said in unison.

"Thanks," Karen replied. She met Irma's gaze, then, and smiled. "Still not talking about it."

Santo came walking in from another room. "Holy crap, guys," he began, "Did you know there were Young Freaking Avengers running around?" A pause. "Oh, hey Karen."

"Rockslide," Karen replied.

Cessily rolled her eyes. "Everyone knows that, Santo."

Then it occurred to Karen exactly what Santo had referenced, and she blinked. "Young Avengers? We have those in this world?"

"Everyone except Karen knows that, Santo," Cessily revised.

"And you never told me? This 'Wiccan' guy is in the other room waiting to see Doctor Strange! How do I not know about them until I run into a dude with a chick's code name? We should go beat them up! Like, for no other reason than that they're the Young Avengers, and we're the New X-Men! It'll be awesome! Who's their strong guy?"

"Hey, there are plenty of male Wiccans," Laurie said.

"How would you know? You ever met any?"

Karen couldn't help but laugh. It was good to be home. She exchanged glances with Kara, who gave a look that said, 'go talk to your friends.' "I'll meet you back at the school," Kara said. "I have a few things to do."

"What's it like?" Laurie asked as Kara walked out the front doors, shutting them carefully behind her.

Karen raised an eyebrow. "What's what like?"

"Being in that new body," Laurie said. "Kara told us what happened. The teachers said it was true, too. Is it weird?"

Karen shrugged. "It's... weird. The same and different. And not just hair colour." She gestured to her stomach. "I don't have a belly button anymore."

"Really?" Laurie asked.

Karen smiled. "No, not really. Honestly, it's... mostly the same. It only bugs me when I actually think about it. Or look in a mirror."

"So all that time, you were two people in the same body..." Cessily said. "That must have been..."

"Weird?" Karen asked with a lopsided smile.

The others laughed.

"Students," a new voice called out, piercing the din of conversation. It was Wong. He was standing at the entrance to Doctor Strange's study. "The master is weary. He is retiring for the evening. He asks that I relay his request that you each find your way home."

Twenty one students glanced his way, exchanged looks, and began to file out the front, where their O*N*E escort of six armed guards were waiting. No one particularly liked that. Not the students, not the guards.

As they walked from Doctor Strange's home to the Bleecker street subway station, Karen glanced at her friends. "So I never got a chance to ask," she said, "Did anything happen while I was unconscious for six days?"

Noriko, Julian, David, Laurie, and Cessily exchanged ominous looks.

Karen frowned. "What? What does that mean?"

"Oh... not a whole lot," Cessily said. Noriko nodded in agreement.

An awkward silence.

"... OK," Laurie said, "Let's see... Psylocke's crazy brother came back and temporarily turned off all the Sentinels, and then he, Psylocke and Nightcrawler and a few others saved the world from the First Fallen."

Karen's eyes widened. "What, the Devil?"

"No idea," Julian said. "They didn't say."

Laurie went on. "Professor Xavier left for Shi'ar space with Marvel Girl, Havoc, Darwin, and a few others..."

"The Professor was here?" Karen asked, her surprise obvious. "And I missed him?"

Cessily shrugged.

Laurie marked out a third finger. "Then Noriko's team went to Denver to fight these HYDRA agents that wanted to kidnap Forge, and crashed one of the Blackbirds..."

"... Denver, HYDRA, Blackbirds, Forge..." Karen repeated.

Laurie marked out a fourth finger, "Then Apocalypse showed up and attacked the school trying to get us all to drink his blood, and turned Polaris into Pestilence and Gambit into Death..."

And now Karen was giving Laurie an incredulous look. "Are you just making things up?" she asked suspiciously.

David looked a little uncomfortable. "To be honest? The reason almost ALL the remaining students came to see you back?" A beat passed. "Most of them figured that Doctor Strange's sanctum was probably less likely to get randomly attacked."

Karen was at a loss for words. "I... see..." she managed.

Irma spoke up, then. She and her sisters had been walking a short ways behind the others. "Tell her about Northstar and Aurora setting fire to the school and almost killing Iceman," she said.

"How do you people not all have ridiculous levels of PTSD?" Karen asked.

"Powerful telepaths," Laurie replied matter-of-factly.

Karen's left eye began to twitch.

They arrived at the station a few minutes later.

The students had already worked out a plan: those who could fly would fly. Those who could carry others would carry others. The rest took the subway from Bleecker street to the 125th street station, where they caught the Harlem rail line to Purdy's. A bus from the school was waiting there to take them all home. Everyone pitched in to cover the cost. Well, everyone except Karen, who hadn't brought any money with her, and wound up feeling a little bit like a tool for all that she was told it was fine.

"... the hell is that?" a voice asked from further back in the bus as it approached the gates to the Xavier Institute.

Karen turned to look. Stared.

"Is that what I think it is?" Santo asked.

"Depends," Karen said, her tone somewhat dazed. "Do you think it's a flying ocean liner? 'Cause that's what I think it is."

"Looks more like a cargo ship to me," David said.

"... Can we all take a moment away from arguing over what kind of flying ship it is that's floating above the school and just deal with the fact that there's a flying ship floating above the school?" Laurie asked.

"Definitely not the sort of thing you see every day," Julian said. Then he smirked. "Unless you're us."

The bus went through the gates. Pulled up in front of the school. The students emerged under heavy guard. Too heavy. Though she knew they couldn't hurt her, Karen became uncomfortably aware of the sheer number of guns pointed her way.

An X-Man was approaching. Guy with a body made of ice. Drake something.

Karen stared up at the flying ship.

"You like it?" Drake-ice-guy asked with a smirk. "We were thinking of getting a matched pair."

"You people are sick," came a voice from off to the left. The speaker, a middle-aged man in full uniform, came stalking up, accompanied by three more soldiers. "I don't care what kind of telepathic leash you've got her on, you sent DIVINE out to New York city in the company of your students? What part of 'EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, to be kept in cryo-stasis until further notice' did you not understand?"

Karen blinked. Looked at the ice-guy, then at the officer. "I'm not..." she began. That was when it occurred to her that she could kill every single soldier on the grounds in the span of a few seconds if she wanted to. And then she gave a mental 'what the hell was that?' at the weird thought, pushing it aside. "I'm not Divine," she said. Emma and Scott were approaching now. They'd emerged from the mansion only a few moments after the ice-guy. … Iceman, right. Cessily had mentioned the name a minute ago, but Karen had been thinking of Top Gun when she said it, and... OK, yeah, that wasn't really a good excuse, and she knew it, but thinking about that was better than dwelling on the sick sense of terror she felt at the thought of being held accountable for Divine's crimes.

The soldier barked a laugh. "The hell you aren't."

"Major Greystone," Emma said, "Ms. Cooper has been appraised of the situation. You have your orders. Be a good soldier and refrain from harassing my students."

Greystone glared at Emma. "First you monsters murder the Sentry, now this? This is beyond the pale, Frost."

"We did nothing of the kind," Emma replied. "The Sentry attacked the school, caused extensive property damage, nearly caused a diplomatic incident by seriously injuring the King of Atlantis on American soil, killed a full thirteen of the so-called '198,' killed at least twice as many of your soldiers, and then disintegrated for reasons unknown, possibly related to his madness."

Greystone held Emma's gaze a moment longer. "This isn't over," he said. Then he looked Karen's way. "Not by a long shot." With those words, he stormed off.

* * *

><p>Kara was in the room when she got in. It was late afternoon, now. Kara was lying on the bed, reading a book. And that was when it occurred to Karen that she didn't have her own room. "Hey," she said.<p>

"Hey," Kara replied.

Karen went over to the sink in the bathroom.

"You want to talk about it?" Kara asked. She was standing at the door, now.

"No," Karen replied, taking a long look at her reflection in the mirror.

"It's weird, isn't it?" Kara asked.

Karen didn't reply.

"Being in Divine's body. But you're lucky. Your friends understand what happened. And hey, you have friends who understand that kind of thing."

Karen said nothing.

"You experienced any flashes of her memories yet?" Kara asked.

Karen looked up. "Is that going to happen?" she asked, alarmed.

"It might," Kara said. "Emma said that most of it's gone, but you might get a little bit. A few flashes. She said that she'd prefer to let your subconscious deal with it naturally, but if you really can't stand it, you should go and see her."

Karen sighed. "... When we stepped into the portal, I got diverted to this other world," she said all at once. "You guys all came back. I was stuck for a day in this … weird other place that combined this world with home."

When Kara didn't reply, Karen went on. "Their version of Buffy had a little sister. Pretty sure she's the reason I wound up there." She took a breath. "There was another me there, too."

Kara raised an eyebrow. "What were you like?" she asked. A beat passed. "Was he like," she corrected.

"Would you believe married to three gorgeous psychopathic nymphomaniacs?" Karen asked.

Kara gave Karen a dubious look. "No, seriously."

"... He was OK, I guess. Male. Older. Like, mid-twenties. Had an eye-patch. The eye behind it was gone. He seemed happy, though."

"How'd you end up like that?" Kara asked, gesturing to Karen's current attire.

Karen looked down at herself and grimaced. "Hell hath no fury like a shopper scorned," she intoned gravely. "Long story short, they were girls with superpowers, I got mouth-molested by someone who wasn't Cordelia, and they …" she trailed off, shrugged, stared at the girl in the mirror with the dark makeup and the hair extensions and the goth look for a long moment, regarding her as she would a stranger.

"Is that supposed to be me?" Karen asked. She looked to Kara. "The girls I met in that other world seemed to think I needed... I don't know. They took me out. Had me made over. Made a whole new me. … I get that I need clothes that fit me and everything, but I don't really do makeup, I still get the crawling horrors at the idea of wearing a skirt, and I couldn't act like a girl to save my life..."

Kara gave Karen a dubious look. "Act like a girl? When you were Xander, how much effort did you put into being male?"

Karen frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Did you find yourself worrying about whether or not you were being manly?"

"Only when Buffy totally broke the guy code, and..."

Kara interrupted. "But how much of your day did normally you spent worrying about whether you were acting male enough?" she asked.

"I... well, none."

"Why not?" Kara asked.

"... because that would be silly?"

Kara nodded. "You don't have to be anyone else's idea of what a girl is. Be yourself. Your body will do what it's going to do, and you need to take care of it, but beyond that... If you want to wear makeup, wear makeup. If you want to wear a dress and fishnets, wear a dress and fishnets. If not, then don't."

"But what about...?"

"What other people are going to think if you don't act or present yourself like a typical girl? They're not the ones who have to live your life. Only you can do that."

Karen stared at the face in the mirror. At the differences. The highlights. The way it made her look darkly beautiful. The way it emphasized some features, concealed others. Then she took a washcloth, wet it in the sink, and began to wipe it all away.

* * *

><p>"Bullshit," Julian said. He and Santo were in a rec room, trying to set up a game of pool. Santo kept knocking the balls out of place when he tried to place them, and after a moment, Julian started waving his hands away every time he reached over to try to help. Cessily and Laurie were on the couch in front of the TV. Laura - X-23 - was over by the window, looking out at the outline of Sentinels against the westering sun.<p>

Karen came walking in, feeling much better now that she'd scrubbed off the black makeup and changed into something more normal: same sneakers, but now a simple blue jeans and off-white blouse combo. With the extensions out, her hair was back to shortish and shaggy as hell, which was annoying, but she was dealing.

"I'm not kidding," Santo said. "Look at this face." He gestured to his literally rocky, craggy face. "Does this look like the face of a guy that's kidding?"

"Hey," Karen called.

"Hey Karen," Cessily replied.

"Hey!" Laurie said.

"You're just saying this because you're still pissed that nobody told you there was a Young Avengers team," Julian said. "I'm not falling for it."

"It's the truth!" Santo reached for the eight ball, scooped it up before Julian could get to it, and gingerly dropped it into the center of the ball-formation.

"Bullshit, Santo. There's no organization with the acronym, 'H.A.T.E.'."

Karen blinked. "... What are they talking about?"

"It stands for Highest Anti-Terrorism Effort!" Santo insisted.

"Santo's still bitter," Cessily replied. She looked over her shoulder. "Nice try, Santo," she said.

Laurie giggled. "Next he'll be trying to convince us that the Duck Man of Cleveland is real."

Santo glared.

"... Anyone seen Irma?" Karen asked.

Cessily shrugged. "Nope," Laurie said. Santo and Julian continued arguing.

Karen hmmed. "Laura, you seen Irma anywhere?" she asked.

"Cerebra," Laura replied.

Karen blinked. "Ah. Thanks."

Laura didn't reply.

* * *

><p>A group of soldiers stood at attention before a large holographic projector in the middle of a large warehouse. There were perhaps thirty of them, each in body armor, listening as their commanding officer briefed them on the threats they were likely to face.<p>

"Next is Sooraya Qadir," the officer said, and a hologram of Sooraya appeared above the projector. "This one transforms into sand, and can project herself with enough velocity to flay the skin off you. Concussion grenades and liquid are both effective against her. Again, these are the mutants the target is most likely to be with at any given time. Each of them is under constant O*N*E surveillance, and we've tapped into those systems for real-time tracking."

He clicked a handheld remote, and the image changed again. "Santo Vaccaro, codename: Rockslide. Superhuman strength, nearly invulnerable skin density, and can use his appendages like projectiles, firing them with level five force. Go for the eyes and mouth." Another click. The image of Power Girl in her old borrowed uniform. "And this one. Karen Starr, codename: Power Girl. Pay attention, lads. O*N*E classes the others as code red threats. This girl is code omega. O*N*E lacks a full accounting of her powers, but those confirmed so far include Superhuman strength, effectively invulnerable skin, flight, superhuman speed, and some kind of eye-lasers."

"... Eye-lasers, sir?" One of the soldiers asked.

"You heard me," the officer said. "This bitch is on the level of Thor or The Sentry. Rumor has it she killed the latter. If she's with the target, do not engage under any circumstances."

Another click. "And this is Divine. Real name unknown. Also code omega. Abilities apparently identical to Power Girl's. The X-Men are supposed to be keeping her in cryo, but after the Sentry incident, she's been recovering in their medical facility, and is apparently now loyal to the X-Men. We have reason to suspect she's now under their telepathic control. I don't think I need to remind you men of what happened in Stamford. Do not engage under any circumstances."

He went through the remaining New X-Men, giving a brief description of each of their abilities, and then, "Once a window of opportunity presents itself, we take the target and get out. Neither the X-Men nor the O*N*E Sentinels are to be engaged, if at all possible. You've seen the files. I don't need to remind you how dangerous these mutants can be." He grinned. "Excessive force is highly recommended."

* * *

><p><em>Xavier Institute<br>Danger Room_

It was all so different now that she had control of her own body again. Now that she wasn't feeling constantly suffocated in her own skin. Now that she wasn't helplessly watching another person puppet her limbs with no outside contact outside of what was facilitated by telepathy. That omnipresent sense of claustrophobic helplessness that had been Kara Zor-L's entire world for the last three months had been lifting little by little for the last seven days. And she'd taken the time to get a few things done.

Beast frowned. "What you are suggesting, young lady, is absurd," he said. "Light is light. Light from a red sun may have a smaller occurrence of high frequencies than light from a yellow sun, tending towards the infrared, but there is no possible mechanism by which you could draw power from yellow sunlight, and have this power temporarily disrupted by red."

Kara gave him a long-suffering look from where she floated in mid-air in the center of the danger room. "Please don't argue with me, Hank, and don't ask me to explain the science. I just need to duplicate the light of a red star."

Beast shook his head and began to adjust the danger room controls to modulate the frequencies of light being generated. "If this works, I shall eat my hat." He gestured to the black cap he wore with a large circled X blazoned in the center of it.

Kara waited.

"Program ready," Beast announced, and then hit the switch to activate it. All at once, the danger room became Central Park, save only that instead of the yellow star which had burned in Earth's skies since time immemorial, now burned there a great red sun.

The sensors began to ping, and he stared at them incredulously as Kara's powers slowly began to wane. She began to drift down towards the ground. It took about a minute before she could no longer hover.

Beast looked at Kara, looked at his readings, took off his hat, took a large bite, chewed, swallowed.

"I know it doesn't need to be said just how much I'm trusting you by giving you this knowledge," Kara said, "But I'm saying it anyways. If Karen and I are going to be working with the X-Men even short term, you need *something* that you can use against us if we end up compromised. What happened with Divine can't ever happen again."

"Mphhmphmpehmpmhpph," Beast replied.

Kara gave Beast a look.

Beast finished chewing, swallowed the last bit of his hat, and then nodded. "I understand," he said gravely. "Believe me when I say, I will not betray your trust."

Kara nodded.

A beat passed. "... Have you considered the offer from the Avengers?" Beast asked.

"You heard about that?" Kara asked.

Beast smiled, and it looked strange on his leonine face. "The X-Men are nothing if not incorrigible gossips."

Kara grinned. "I know how that can be. Did I ever tell you about my team back home?"

"I don't believe you did."

"Justice Society of America," Kara said. "The Flash. Green Lantern. Wildcat. Mr. Terrific. Doctor Fate. Doctor Mid-Nite, Stargirl, Lightning. Good people. I'm the chairperson at the moment." She frowned. "Or I was, before this."

"You must know that Reed Richards and Tony Stark both are seeking a way to return you to your home," Beast said. "You will see your friends again."

Kara nodded. "I know I will. I'm just worried about what happens to Karen when that happens. … and I don't exactly approve of them making me joining their team as reserve member a condition of their lobbying to have the charges against her dropped." She made a face. "Justice shouldn't be about political deals."

"Such is the world we live in," Beast said, not without regret.

"It doesn't have to be," Kara replied, and there was conviction in her voice. She wasn't talking about going home to her own universe.

Beast nodded. "It doesn't have to be," he conceded. "The arc of the moral universe is long," he quoted, "But it bends towards justice. And sometimes it needs a little help along the way." A beat passed, and Beast changed the subject. "If she chooses not to accompany you," he said, "She'll manage. Whatever else she may be, she is among friends here."

Kara smiled. "Thanks." She glanced up at the clock, then to Beast. "Better get going," she said. "Kitty, Peter and I were going to catch this new slasher movie I heard about."

Beast blinked. "Slasher movie?"

Kara nodded. "It's called Hostel. It's supposed to be pretty bloody. Not one of those watered down teen audience ones."

"...Ah," Beast said, not entirely sure how to react. Peter and Kitty had never shown any interest in slasher films as far as he knew. He wondered, did they know what they were in for? He turned to ask the question aloud.

Kara was gone.

* * *

><p>One of the annoying things about super-hearing was having to pretend you couldn't hear everything said by anyone nearby. Karen had gotten pretty good at it over the last few months. She walked along the corridor that led to the Cerebra chamber, pretending away that she hadn't heard Cessily's discovery of Laura's crush on Julian, pretending she couldn't hear Kitty and Peter's makeout session, pretending she couldn't hear the sound of construction going on in the cargo ship floating above the mansion, pretending a lot of things.<p>

The door opened as she approached it. Irma, Phoebe, and Celeste were within, each wearing one of the specialized helmets that helped to connect a telepath to the Cerebra system.

Karen walked into the chamber and stood behind the girls, watching the display for a few moments. It was showing... points of light scattered across the globe. Some in large clusters. Some in small clusters. Some isolated. Karen counted two hundred and fifty six thousand three hundred and one blips on the display, and it still kind of made her giggle that she could determine that in less than a second.

"Hello, Karen," Irma said, turning to look over her shoulder. She made a disappointed noise. "You changed," she said.

"Yeah," Karen said. "Dress, fishnets, makeup? Not really me."

"We liked it," all three girls said in unison.

Irma winked. "It made you look hot."

"What're you looking at?" Karen asked.

"Mutants," Celeste said. "All of them," Phoebe said.

Karen looked at the display of the planet Earth, at the scattering of lights. "Why?"

"We wanted to see if there had been any new mutant births, any new mutant awakenings since M-Day," Irma said.

"Have there?"

"No," the girls said in unison. "Nine in ten mutants lost their powers," Celeste said. "And no new mutants since then," Phoebe finished.

"Oh." A pause. "When was M-Day, anyways? I keep hearing about it, but nobody's ever said..."

"June 30th," Irma said.

Karen blinked at that. June 30th. It had been October 31st in her universe when she left, but she was pretty sure that the date here when she arrived had been June 30th... huh.

"You're not going to throw away the dress, are you?" Irma asked.

Karen blinked. "I was thinking about it," she said.

Irma made a disappointed sound, looking Karen's way once more. "You should keep it. I liked it on you."

Karen blushed. "I... er..." Brain in danger of shut down. And not because of telepathic influence. "I'm not comfortable wearing something like that," she managed.

Irma nodded. "I figured."

Karen blinked. "... You were messing with me." she said.

"Little bit. Though it DID look good on you."

Karen tried to screw up her courage. She'd wanted to ask Irma out for a long time now, but she hadn't... first there was going home, then six days unconscious, then actually going home but to say goodbye, then...

Her courage failed her. "Hey, I'll see you around," she said.

Irma looked disappointed, but nodded.

Karen turned to go. She stopped at the doorway. Turned around. "Do you want to go out with me?" she blurted out. "I, er, as... you know, two people, and going to a... food..." she trailed off, blushing heavily, thinking to herself, 'smooth, Karen. Real smooth.'

Irma laughed. "When?" she asked.

"Tomorrow? Dinner in town? Maybe go to … whatever the local equivalent of the Bronze is?"

"Sure. Will you wear that dress?"

"... uh," she said.

"Kidding," Irma lied.

The other two Cuckoos gave Irma and Karen disapproving looks, but Karen didn't notice. She felt as though her heart were carrying her whole body up into the air. She smiled like a fool. Whatever else was going on, things were definitely looking up.

That was when the sound of an explosion reached her Kryptonian ears, followed by the sounds of gunfire, and of Cessily's distant screams.

* * *

><p><em><strong>End Chapter 02<strong>_

Author's note:

I know that the official date for M-Day is November 2. That made no sense to me, given that the Civil War event is described as having taken place 'over the summer.' Which would mean that either M-Day happened *after* the Civil War, or there was almost a year between M-Day and the Civil War, which the comics portrayed as taking place while the X-Men were more or less still dealing with the aftermath of the Decimation. So I changed the date.


	16. DU: Sparks on the Cold Hearth

Destination Unknown  
>by P.H. Wise<br>A Power Girl Crossover Fanfic

Chapter 3: Sparks on the Cold Hearth

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby. This chapter contains some dialogue taken from Phoenix Warsong #01. Marvel owns that, too.

* * *

><p>The coffee shop was in ruins. Innocent people were buried in the ruble, some dead, some not. Laura clutched at her belly, trying to keep her insides on the inside while her healing factor did it's thing. Watching as the black armored van with its soldiers who had taken Cessily peeled out, with Kimura - her former handler - still leaning out the passenger side door.<p>

"KIMURA!" Laura roared.

"Another time, X," Kimura called. "See you soon."

A dark blur. A rush of wind. The van lifted into the air. The sonic boom arrived a few seconds after. The wheels spun without ground contact for a few moments. Then the van shook violently, dropping Kimura out onto the road. Then Karen lowered the van gently to the ground, this time on its side.

"... damn it," Kimura hissed.

Laura was already charging. Leaped like a feral creature, trying everything she could to kill the woman who had brought her so much suffering, killed the people in the cafe, and then taken Cessily. Her claws couldn't pierce the woman's skin.

Kimura heaved her off, and she was back in a flash. Just in time to take a shot to the gut from what looked like a tranquilizer gun. She didn't cry out. Not even when a wave of warm dizziness swept over her, and her limbs became sluggish. Another shot, this one to the neck. She could feel her healing factor fighting off whatever it was. She shook her head, struggled to rise. Something metal slid into place around her neck with a click, and her healing factor shut off like a light.

Laura looked up. Karen was helping Cessily out of the back of the van. The soldiers weren't stopping her. Two were unconscious.

"I've just poisoned X-23," Kimura announced, rising to her feet. "And that power-suppression collar around her neck ensuring her healing factor stays inactive is made of secondary adamantium. She'll be dead in less than a minute without medical intervention."

Laura glared. It was getting hard to breathe. Hard to move her head to glare at Kimura. "Blllsht..." she slurred. Her mouth wasn't cooperating, either. She couldn't swallow.

"Make your choice, Divine. Which of your friends are you going to save?"

Karen glared at Kimura. "My name's not Divine," she said, annoyed.

"Tick, tock," Kimura said.

Karen looked at Cessily, then at Laura.

"Save Cessily," Laura tried to say, but her mouth wouldn't cooperate. Her vocal cords wouldn't... she couldn't breathe... she knew what she'd been dosed with now.

"NO!" Cessily screamed. "Save Laura! Don't you DARE let her die, Karen!"

Karen walked Cessily over to Laura. The soldiers followed at a distance, none of them sure how this was going to turn out. Then Karen reached out and grabbed hold of the collar with both hands.

"What part of secondary adamantium do you not understand?" Kimura asked. "Are you really going to let your friend die while you engage in a futile test of strength?"

"She's right," Cessily said, "You're strong, Karen, but you're not the Hulk..."

Karen struggled, muscles visibly straining as she pulled on either side of the collar. For a long, terrible moment, nothing happened. … and then there was an awful ripping-metal sound, and she broke the collar in half, pulling each half away from Laura's neck. Immediately, Laura's healing factor kicked in, and the effects of the curare began to subside. She took the tiniest, smallest breath of air, and it was the sweetest she'd ever tasted.

"You were saying?" Karen asked.

Kimura stared, and in her eyes, for one brief moment, Laura saw a thing that she had never seen in Kimura before: fear. "What."

Tension grew in the air. None of the soldiers wanted to be the first to move. Laura could smell their terror. She could move, now. Still sluggish, but enough to start getting back up to her feet. She was getting stronger by the second.

Laura broke the tension by unsheathing her claws with an audible 'snikt'.

Karen's stance shifted then. Her gaze hardened, her eyes no longer kind but full of judgment; her voice no longer soft but filled with quiet anger. "Here's how this is going to work," she said. "You help me tend to the people you hurt and then give yourselves up to the authorities, and I don't hold you down and let X-23 here beat you to death with your own severed limbs. That work for you?"

"... uh... yeah, that sounds fair," the soldiers agreed.

"Cowards and traitors," Kimura hissed, producing a pistol. Before she could pull the trigger, Cessily batted it out of her hands with a limb reshaped into a club, and it went clattering to the ground.

"This just isn't your day," Cessily remarked.

Kimura cursed.

"... Anything I should know about her, Laura?" Karen asked.

"She's immune to harm," Laura said. "No force can penetrate her flesh. It's annoying."

Karen hmmed thoughtfully. "Immune to harm, huh?" A brief pause. "I still don't like the idea of hitting a..."

Kimura reached for a dagger.

Karen cut off in mid-sentence. A split second later, she'd smashed Kimura's face into the concrete sidewalk three times. Then Karen turned towards the soldiers, heedless of the sound of approaching sirens. "Get to work," she said. "People are counting on us."

It was then that Laura decided that Karen was useful to have around.

It was a little surreal, working with three soldiers from the Facility to get injured people to safety. Some they moved. Some they dug out. Some they left because the rubble on top of them was the only thing keeping them from bleeding out. Once more paramedics were on hand, those people were evacuated as well. Four people had been killed. Another five might live, if they were lucky. A dozen more who would have been smothered in the rubble were fine. And Cessily was fine.

Despite the grim work, Laura allowed herself the luxury of a smile.

* * *

><p>Peter Parker awoke in a hospital room. That was good: after hitting WAY above his weight in that fight against Divine, he hadn't really expected to wake up at all, so this was a definite improvement on being dead. Speaking as someone who had been dead (sort of - well, for like a split second, maybe), he figured he was in a position to know. Well, OK, he'd asked Jean Grey, once, back when the X-Men hadn't been too cool to hang around with non-mutants. … which also wasn't exactly a fair description. He was just recovering from being nearly killed, though, so he figured a few unkind thoughts were excusable. Still, he could have done without the way his everything hurt. "... Ow." he said.<p>

Mary Jane Watson-Parker was at his side in an instant, crossing the space between the chair where she'd sat watching over him and his bed in a split second and then she had him wrapped up in a hug that made his everything hurt a little bit more than it had before. He tried, but he couldn't hug her back: he was in a full body cast. "Hi." he said.

"Welcome back, Peter." Tony. Tony was here. Looked like he had just walked in through the door.

"You had me worried," MJ whispered into his hair.

"Had me worried, too," Peter replied. "Anyone get the number of the naked chick that hit me?"

Mary Jane pulled back a little, gave Peter a look, seemed to think about it for a moment, and then rolled her eyes. "I'm going to assume you didn't mean that the way it sounded."

He blinked, then tried to nod, but couldn't quite manage it. "... Oh. Good assumption. I meant that..."

Tony cut him off. "She's been briefed, Peter." MJ nodded in confirmation.

"Oh. Good." Peter looked down at himself, taking in the damage, trying not to feel a rising sense of panic over the way he couldn't actually feel anything below his waist. "How long was I out?"

"Over a week, Peter," Mary Jane said. "You scared us half to death."

Peter stared. "... Aunt May?" he asked.

"Been here," MJ replied. "Watching over you. We've been coming in shifts."

Peter nodded, then looked thoughtful, then frowned. "Hey, maybe it's just the painkillers, but I can't actually feel my legs."

Mary Jane looked to Tony.

"We know," Tony said. "When you fought Divine alone, and she... sent you through that tree, it fractured your spine in thirteen places. Reed and I have done what we can to repair the damage, probably saved you from total paralysis, but frankly, you're lucky to be alive."

Peter felt as though the floor had just fallen out from under him. "...What?" And then MJ had her arms around him, drawing him into another hug, and it hurt, but the warmth and affection he felt towards her in that moment overwhelmed any sense of pain.

"It's going to be OK, Tiger," MJ murmured.

"We have some ideas for a kind of cybernetic nervous system replacement, though," Tony went on. "Give us a few years, and we'll have you up on your feet again."

Peter kept right on staring, a sense of incredulity mingled with anger rising within him. When he spoke, there was a hard edge to his voice. "Not to sound ungrateful," he said, "But isn't there a mutant kid over at Xavier's who can cure any kind of injury just by thinking it?"

Mary-Jane's eyes widened. "What?" She looked at Tony.

Tony shifted uncomfortably. "I'd prefer not to involve an unknown, potentially unstable boy who has limited control over his powers at best..." he began.

Peter felt his jaw drop open ever so slightly.

"That's unacceptable," Mary-Jane said, and there was a hard edge in her voice that Peter had rarely heard before, and only on those rare occasions when he'd made her REALLY angry.

"You need to understand," Tony tried to explain, "The situation is complicated, and we don't even know if the Foley boy could actually heal you. He might do more harm than good."

"More harm than me being paralyzed for the next few YEARS?" Peter asked.

Mary-Jane's tone was ice-cold, now. "Mr. Stark, I don't know what kind of issues you've got with the X-Men, but if they've got a mutant with the power to heal my husband, the other option is 'a few years of paralysis,' and you're not willing to bring him to even LOOK at Peter, then you're not the man we thought you were."

The tension grew. The silence grew, broken only by the steady beep of the heart monitor. And then Tony sighed. "I'll make the call," he said, and walked out of the room.

When the door had shut behind him, Mary-Jane released her icy demeanor, shook her head, and looked at her husband. "I don't understand that man," she said.

Peter looked down. "... He wasn't this bad before the Hulk went missing," he said.

Mary-Jane didn't reply.

* * *

><p>Construction was continuing on the Xavier estate. The refugee city taking shape upon that property had grown larger still, with new tents and new permanent construction, with the first dormitory having been finished three days prior. A thousand mutants had come here, and there were plans to at least double that number. As Karen, Cessily, and Laura returned, this time under heavy guard, a dozen soldiers moving with them, and Karen collared and shackled with the best power-suppression devices money could buy. … mutant power suppression devices, that is.<p>

Once inside the gates, they were made to get out and walk, and Karen did so, glancing about at the new construction, at the sign someone had put up that said, 'Welcome to Mutantville.' At the O*N*E troops who swarmed across the area. "I think we made them mad," she said. Cessily rolled her eyes.

It was night. The sun had set. The stars were bright. It was the last day of the full moon. To Karen's eyes, the skies were full of light and colour. Every time she looked up at night, what waited for her was a panorama of unparalleled beauty. It was kind of distracting, actually. Though she was in high-tech shackles and a collar, Karen walked like she didn't have a care in the world. Some of the residents of 'Mutantville' gathered to watch as the three girls were led into the estate, but when it became clear that nothing more was happening, they went back to their own business.

They were led into the mansion, down a few hallways, and into a meeting room where Scott Summers, Valerie Cooper, Ororo Munroe, and Emma Frost were waiting.

"You can release her," Valerie said.

The soldiers moved to do so, but before they could, Karen pulled her hands apart, shredding the shackles like they were made of tissue. She reached for the collar, only to be interrupted by Valerie, speaking with a resigned tone of voice: "Miss Starr, please refrain from destroying our expensive power suppression equipment."

She stopped. The guards exchanged panicked looks, then, at Ms. Cooper's gesture, moved in and removed the collar. "Ma'am," they said.

"Leave us," she told them.

"With respect, Ma'am, this girl is..."

"Completely beyond the ability of six guards to handle," Val said. "If she wanted to kill us, we'd be dead. Leave us. Now."

Karen shifted uncomfortably. The way they were treating her... yeah, OK, so Divine had proven herself horrifically lethal, but still. She wasn't Divine. She kept telling people that. Kept lying, really. But the truth was complicated. She didn't need complicated. She needed something simple. Something black and white she could tell the nervous authorities: 'I'm not Divine. Divine is dead.' Even if it was a lie.

Everyone was looking at them. They didn't look happy.

"What happened?" Scott asked.

Silence for a moment as Karen and Cessily exchanged glances.

"It's my fault," Laura began.

"Just tell us what happened, child," Ororo said. "There will be time enough to assign blame later."

They did. They admitted to sneaking out. Using the old Morlock tunnels to leave without being seen by the guards. The coffee shop. The explosion. The attack.

"I was down at Cerebra," Karen said. "I heard the explosion, and then Cessily's voice. I..." she clenched and unclenched a fist. "They needed me. I couldn't just sit there."

Valerie Cooper looked Karen in the eye. "So you decided that instead of alerting O*N*E to the situation, or even informing a teacher, that you would leave the compound yourself and intervene."

"Er, yeah."

Valerie sighed. "And you two … evaded the guards that are here to protect you, snuck out through 'Morlock tunnels,' and drew the attention of a dangerous criminal organization. Is there anything else I should know about?"

Cessily looked at Laura, then at Valerie, and said nothing.

"They needed help," Karen said, "I helped. We saved some lives, and O*N*E took prisoner the woman responsible. Where's the bad?"

"Unfortunately," Ororo said, "The situation is more complex than you might suppose."

"You've put us into a very difficult position," Valerie added. "Me in particular."

"No offense," Karen said, "But aren't you the lady in charge of the operation that's put like the equivalent of a whole squad of mechanical death-machine burning crosses on the lawn?" A beat. "... I mean, if this weren't a school for mutants, but a school for..." she trailed off, growing flustered. Then she steeled herself, looked Val in the eye, and said, "Military death machines. School grounds. Concentration camp. You're in charge. I should care what you think why exactly?"

Scott and Emma exchanged looks.

"Miss Cooper is acting with the full authority of the Office of National Emergency," Ororo said. "And therefore with the full authority of the government of the United States."

"Again with the military death machines, school grounds, and concentration camp."

"This isn't any kind of concentration camp, Ms. Starr," Valerie said. "I understand why you'd use the metaphor, but as satisfying as it might be as a cheap emotional cudgel, it's inappropriate, offensive, and inaccurate. We're here for your protection. We're not here to oppress the remaining mutants."

Cessily started to snort dismissively, then stopped herself.

"Something to say, Mercury?" Emma asked, an eyebrow raised.

Cessily looked uncomfortable.

"Go ahead," Emma said.

Cessily spoke up, then, timid at first, but gaining confidence as she went on, "It seems like every time there's a crisis, all your Sentinels manage to do is get turned off or destroyed. When the Children of the Vault attacked in the flying boat, what did the Sentinels do, besides nothing?"

"Or when Apocalypse came?" Laura asked.

"Or the Sentry," Karen added.

"It's not that simple," Valerie said.

"I dunno," Karen said. "It seems pretty simple to me."

"Because you're a child," Valerie replied. "And I don't expect children to understand how complicated the world can be."

Now Karen was glaring. "Explain it me, then."

"Ms. Cooper's position here is tenuous," Ororo said. "Her position is unenviable. She has always been a friend to the X-Men, and has done her best to mitigate the damage the O*N*E occupation has done. Her superiors are aware of this."

"There's growing pressure to crack down on what is seen as the lawlessness of the X-Men and their students," Valerie said. "Every time you people ignore O*N*E protocols, my job gets more difficult, the refugees grow a little more resentful, and my superiors grow a little more unhappy. When the X-Men do it, it's bad. It shows the refugees a double standard. They can't leave the compound without an armed escort and subdermal tracking implants. The X-Men make a habit of leaving whenever they feel like it. But when the person ignoring the rules is the most wanted criminal on the planet, supposedly being held in cryo-stasis AND a telepathically induced coma because S.H.I.E.L.D. lacks the appropriate resources to contain the threat?"

There was a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. "... I'm not Divine," she said. It wasn't any more true now than it had been the first time she'd said it. 'Complicated' sucked.

"I know that," Valerie replied. "Everyone in this room knows that. You might find this a little hard to believe, but the law is a little fuzzy when it comes to dual-minded extra-dimensional aliens transferring their extra mind into and taking control of the bodies of wanted criminals."

Karen swallowed audibly.

"This is ridiculous," Cessily said. All eyes went to her, but she didn't back down. "She saved our lives, and you're treating her like she's done something wrong!"

"You're right," Emma said. "What Karen did wasn't technically wrong. Irresponsible, perhaps, but morally defensible. It's made an already unstable situation far, far worse, but she isn't the one I blame for this. You are."

Cessily reacted as if she'd been slapped. "Ms. Frost?"

Emma didn't back down. "You left the school without permission. You snuck out through the Morlock tunnel to avoid the guards who are supposed to protect you. From your report, several people were killed in the explosion and subsequent attack. Why? Because you wanted coffee." She shook her head. "You can't be children anymore. Not any of you."

"The stakes are too high," Valerie said. "As is, I'll be lucky to keep my job. I'm doing my best here to keep the worst of this away, from the X-Men and from the refugees both, but I can only push things so far."

Silence. The beating of Karen's heart - of every heart in the room - was loud in her own ears. "... What are we supposed to do?" she asked.

"Work with us," Valerie said. "Things are bad, but we can still keep this from turning into a nightmare."

It was all... complicated. She was starting to hate that word. 'I was thinking we might try violence.' Karen discarded the thought as soon as it occurred to her. Sure, she could destroy every single Sentinel. She could beat up the soldiers and dump them all into a big unconscious pile. Or she could kill them. Not that she would, but she had the ability. It wouldn't even be hard. The problem she was having, besides the 'I'm not willing to kill hundreds of people' problem, was the 'and then what?' problem. She destroys the Sentinels. She incapacitates the soldiers. Government response teams move in. She brings to bear all the violence that she's capable of - restrained as best she can - And then what? … she didn't have an answer for that. She knew one thing for sure: that wasn't what a hero did.

Truth. Justice. The American Way. It was the first time she'd ever really thought about those things without a touch of sarcasm or irony coloring her view. What did those things mean? What did any of it mean? What would Superman do?

… What would _**Buffy**_ do?

She didn't know the answer. Or if she did, she couldn't admit it to herself.

* * *

><p>Stark Tower. Kara Zor-L sat dead center on a plush leather couch across from its twin, a rectangular black coffee table between them. The floor here was hard wood. Behind her was a brick fireplace with a large picture of the original Avengers in action hanging from a nail. The room was a huge, wide-open space, multi-leveled, an all-purpose area for the members of the superhero team. Right now, Power Girl was seated across from a gorgeous brunette in a spider-themed outfit named Jessica Drew, with a gorgeous blonde in a skimpy black costume with a gold thunderbolt down the middle seated at her side named Carol Danvers.<p>

"So," said Kara.

"So," said Jessica.

"So," said Carol.

It was a little awkward.

Kara shifted in her seat, and the move dislodged a lock of her increasingly unmanageable, increasingly shaggy hair. It fell down over her eyes, and she took a moment to brush it aside. "So where does an invulnerable girl get a haircut in this reality?" she asked, with just a touch of humor in her tone.

Carol gave a slight smile.

"How invulnerable are we talking?" Jessica asked.

"I had a friend enchant a pair of scissors to do the job back home," Kara replied, "But anything short of that just breaks. Unless you've got scissors made out of the same stuff as Wolverine's claws."

"You know, it's a shame, you don't actually find a lot in the way of adamantium styling tools," Jessica said.

"Darn," Kara said, and only barely managed not to laugh. "So you girls are Avengers, huh?"

The other women nodded. "As of yesterday," Carol said. "I'm Carol. We've met before, but I never had the chance to introduce myself."

"After the Stryker rally, right?"

"That was the second time," Carol said. "First time was when you fell into East River. Unless that was your tagalong?"

Kara made a face. "That was Karen. … Does everyone know I was sharing my head space for three months?"

"Tony briefed us all on your situation when he said you'd be joining as a reserve member," Carol replied. "I didn't think we did reserve members anymore."

"I'm Jessica," Jessica said. "Or Jess." A very slight smirk. "So you're our new flying brick?"

Kara raised an eyebrow. "... Flying brick?"

"Winner of the superpower lottery," Jessica said. "Like Sentry. Flight, super strength, nigh invulnerability, super speed, maybe a few more random powers with the word 'super' in front of them, the super-ability to squeeze that figure into that suit..."

Kara laughed, and even as she did, she heard the sound of footsteps outside the door. She looked up, looked through the door. Captain America was about to open the door. The door opened. Captain America walked in.

Carol noticed, and immediately rose to her feet. "Captain," she said.

He smiled. "Hello, Carol. I see you've met our new reserve member." He nodded to Kara. "Power Girl, right?"

Being reminded of the fact that she'd just joined these 'Avengers,' and by extension, of the reason she'd done so, erased Kara's good mood. "For the time being," she said.

He raised an eyebrow. "Well, it's nice to meet you. Call me Steve."

"I know who you are, Captain," she replied.

Steve sent a questioning look Carol's way, and she just shrugged. After a moment, Steve went on. "We're working to get you and your sister legal identities and provisional permanent resident status. This isn't the first time we've dealt with extra-terrestrials, or even natives of an alternate reality or timeline coming to live here. We'll get it sorted out." His tone was sure and confident, just a touch of sympathy, and even worse, it seemed like the sympathy was unfeigned. "Oh, I may need your help tomorrow. Sentry's wife is... well, she's not taking the news of what happened very well. I think it might do her some good to talk to you."

Kara ignored his request. "It would be easier to accept your sympathy if you hadn't made my joining your team a precondition for lobbying to have the charges against Divine dropped after Karen took over her body," she said, her tone cold.

Dead silence. A beat passed. Then two.

"_What?_" The question was low, quiet, and intense. The expression on Steve's face told Kara everything she needed to know: he hadn't known. Tony Stark had done that on his own.

"Ask your friend, Mr. Stark, about it," she said.

"Tony would never..." he trailed off. Would he really never? Once upon a time, Steve would have said 'no, not in a million years.' Now, though...

Carol and Jessica exchanged nervous looks. Then Captain America clenched his fist, unclenched it. "Ladies," he said, "If you'll excuse me, it looks like my friend and I need to have a talk." With that he turned smoothly and walked for the exit.

Carol let out a breath. "... Did Tony really...?" she began.

"Yeah," Kara replied, interrupting her.

Carol shook her head. "I wouldn't want to be in his shoes when Steve finds him."

* * *

><p>It was late, now. A still had come over the night. No sounds of construction came from the refugee area. No night birds sang. Even the insects seemed to have fallen silent. A few people yet walked the halls of the Xavier Institute, but their footsteps seemed loud in the silence. Even stirring in your own bed seemed loud in the silence.<p>

The Cuckoos couldn't sleep. They'd tried, but a group mind was a curious thing: one part feels something, the rest experience it, too, even if they'd rather not. Like Irma's irritating crush on that boy-turned-girl.

_ *Is this a good time to bring up the fact that every time in the past one of us has fallen in love, she's ended up DEAD not long afterwards?*_ Celeste asked, looking annoyed.

Irma sighed. _*Not this again.*_

It was an old argument now. One that they'd been having ever since the first stirrings of a crush had begun to grow. Each of them understood the argument. Each of them understood how Irma felt. Each of them understood how Celeste and Phoebe felt. None of that really captured it, though. Maybe it was closer to say that they all felt the way that Irma felt, and they all felt the way that Celeste and Phoebe felt.

_*I've thought of a new argument for why you should stay away from her,*_ Celeste sent into their link. She was lying, of course, and the others knew it as well as she did.

_*Liar,* _Irma replied, though she hardly needed to.

A new emotion entered the link, felt by all three. Irritation. _*If you two are going to keep me awake by fighting about something, can it at least be something not Karen-related?* _Phoebe asked_ *This whole 'our life is defined by who Irma has a crush on' thing we've had going for the last month? Kind of sick of it.* _

Both Irma and Celeste had the decency to feel bad about that one.

They tried going back to bed. Tried counting sheep. Tried counting Beasts. Tried counting the most boring thing they could think of (Professor Summers' system of mental organization). They tossed and turned. That lasted about an hour. No luck. Finally, despairing of getting to sleep, they all three got up, rubbed their eyes, and headed out into the hall, Irma in her white tank top and blue drawstring pajamas, Celeste in her long sleeved purple shirt and striped boxer shorts, Phoebe in her mountbatten-pink tank top and denim shorts.

They passed Julian in the hall. He grinned when he saw them. "Well, hellooo, ladies," he said.

"Drop dead, Hellion," Irma and Celeste replied in perfect unison.

Julian's grin didn't waver. "Come on. You can't sleep. I can't sleep. Why don't we..."

They turned and spoke as one, cutting him off mid-sentence. "These aren't the breasts you're looking for," they said, giving him a slight telepathic push.

His face relaxed out of his grin, his eyes losing focus. "These aren't the breasts I'm..." He blinked. Frowned. Glared. "Hey!"

They walked on without another word, none of them really sure where they were going, just... needing to go there.

'_They think they know you.' _

In time, they found their way outside and across the silent grounds to the graveyard, and then to the graves of their sisters, Esme and Sophie. The missing parts of their Five-in-One, now reduced to Three.

"Wait," Celeste said, looking down at the graves with a confused look on her face. "Irma, where - what are we doing here?"

Irma shivered. She didn't have an answer. None of them had an answer.

And elsewhere in the mansion, Emma Frost's dreams were filled with flames.

* * *

><p>The next morning, as usual, Karen woke with the dawn. It didn't seem to matter when she went to sleep. Without fail, the sun came up, and up she woke. On the plus side, it meant she could sleep in longer during the winter, and hey, that was rapidly approaching. It was the October eighth today, and a Monday, for all that was worth. Noriko was still sleeping. Probably would be for another half hour. Karen took the opportunity to get her showering done and then made a go at making herself presentable and doing basic maintenance, and grinning just a little bit when she thought about her date with Irma tonight. She was in the middle of flossing - an awkward activity for a Kryptonian under a yellow sun, but one she always made an effort to do anyways - when Noriko staggered in through the bathroom's open door.<p>

"...y'done?" Noriko mumbled, still not fully awake. She looked bleary-eyed, her hair mussed from sleep; still pretty without her makeup, but a 'normal person' sort of pretty.

"I'm done," Karen confirmed, evacuating the bathroom in short order, shutting the door behind her.

The sound of the shower began shortly afterwards.

Karen dressed herself for the day, not really paying attention to the outfit she was choosing, putting on her costume, then her normal clothes on top of that. Her wardrobe had grown as a result of her trip back home, and then the side trip that followed. The sleeveless blue shirt she put on came from that. The brown shorts didn't go well with the shirt, nor with the red and yellow design on it, but again with the not paying attention. Off she went, the memory of yesterday's scolding from the teachers already settling into her thoughts, and her mood began to go downhill, and the day only just begun.

By nine thirty, she'd retreated to the library to sulk. Or read. One or the other. Xavier's collection wasn't anywhere near as fun as Giles', but she found something eventually. Some old spell book. She'd been surprised to find it, actually. Hadn't expected to find a thing like that here. A name was written on the inside cover: _'Property of Illyana Rasputina.'_ Karen had never had any particular talent for magic, but a book of spells was familiar, and that was comforting. She'd been staring at the same page for nearly ten minutes when she realized that Emma Frost was in the room, and watching her. She started in surprise, took a moment, recovered her composure, and then found her mood quickly souring again. "Did you come to tell me more about how I'm being childish, and that I can't be an immature little brat anymore? Cause that was swell."

Emma smirked, but Karen thought it looked a little strained, like Emma hadn't gotten all the sleep she needed and was crankier than normal.

"But hey," Karen continued, "I'm sure it's no reason to be bitter. There are probably plenty of people who enjoy being told something like that after all they did was save the life of their friends."

"Are you finished?"

Karen thought about that, making a show of giving some consideration to the question. "I figure I've got another ten minutes of material," she decided, "But sure, let's call it finished."

"Good," Emma said. "There's an official visit to the school tomorrow. A head of state is coming, and part of his visit is a meeting with you. A head of state who does not suffer fools gladly."

Karen blinked. "A head of state wants to see me?" she asked, unable to hide her surprise. Not that she could if she tried. Stupid telepathy.

"King Namor of Atlantis."

Karen looked a little incredulous. Sounded it, too. "Bizarro Aquaman wants to meet with me?"

"I dislike repeating myself," Emma said.

"'cause a Ms. Frost who has to repeat herself is a Ms. Frost who rewires my brain to make me think about sex every time I look at linoleum, right?" There was perhaps more than just a touch of sarcasm in Karen's tone as she spoke, and when Emma looked her straight in the eye, so very not impressed, Karen tried not to be intimidated, tried very hard.

"Don't sass the woman who can rewrite your brain at will, child," Emma said.

Karen looked away, unable to hold Emma's gaze. Yeah. Intimidated. "... Right. What do I need to do?"

Emma gestured to Karen's mismatched outfit. "Given that becoming a woman clearly has not advanced your fashion sense beyond the most troglodytic of levels, I've taken the liberty of arranging some assistance. Miss van Dyne will be arriving shortly to assist you. I suggest you change into something less visually offensive before she arrives."

Karen frowned, looking down at her outfit. "What's wrong with what I'm..." she trailed off. She hadn't realized she'd been wearing a Superman shirt. That was weird. Actually, she hadn't realized there'd BEEN a Superman shirt in her closet. "Oh."

The image of Emma's form - a telepathic projection - vanished, and Karen was alone once more.

* * *

><p>Ten o'clock in the morning, and Captain America was waiting. Power Girl still wasn't sure what to think of the man. She'd done her research. Karen seemed to be content to sort of absorb the differences between this world and her home as they came up, but she was mostly confined to the Xavier estate: Power Girl didn't really have that luxury. It still kind of bothered her that so many places she'd taken for granted just plain didn't even exist in this world. Not having a Coast City, Central City, or a Gotham she could wrap her brain around. It was weird, but she could deal with it. But not having Metropolis? New York City being the big east coast city that everyone knew about? Sure, she'd lived in New York. The JSA operated there. She'd even headquartered Starrware there. But... no City of Tomorrow? New Troy just plain didn't even <strong>exist<strong>? It was like learning that there wasn't a sun in the sky.

There was something else, though. Something she couldn't put her finger on. Something in the air. In the sunlight. In the water. She was on edge, and she didn't really know why, and that bothered her. Granted it wasn't anywhere near as bad as being a teenager again, but still.

There it was: Stark Tower, and the Sentry's Watchtower above it. That was where they were to meet. In the home of the missing hero. … and for the home of a hero, the place sure screamed 'supervillain lair.' Maybe it was just the man's mental instability at work. Either way, Captain America was waiting within.

So was the Sentry's wife.

"... any word?" Lindy Reynolds was asking even as Power Girl approached. She could see the woman through the walls. Hear her, too.

Captain America shook his head. "There's still no sign of him," he said. "Not at the Xavier estate. Not anywhere else. Lindy, if he doesn't come back from this..."

"He'll come back," Lindy said, and she sounded like she believed it. "He always does. Always. And look, we're still here. CLOC is still here. And..." she shivered. "I've kept the basement locked. I know the Void isn't still in there, but..." she trailed off, then tried again, "I know the Void isn't still in there, but I... I... I can hear things down there, sometimes."

"If he doesn't," Captain America began again.

"He will," Lindy insisted.

A new voice spoke. Mechanical. Power Girl didn't recognize it.. "Lindy, you have not been outside of this tower since the Sentry disappeared. This pattern of behavior is highly unhealthy. I asked the Captain to contact your family because..."

"Because he's Captain America?" Lindy asked. "I understand. But I'm still not going to leave. I believe in my husband. He'll be back. But I appreciate the gesture. From both of you."

Power Girl landed, and walked into the sanctuary of the Golden Guardian of Good.

It wasn't what she expected. It seemed so... normal. A kitchen that wouldn't have looked out of place in a suburban home. A cheap, dubiously wooden table from ikea. Three black chairs gathered round it. A living room made for two.

The Sentry's dog came to greet her as she arrived. Flew to greet her, actually, barking loudly, and the sight of a flying dog made her all the more homesick, even as she laughed, and scratched the little guy between the ears. A Welsh Corgi version of Krypto? Really? "What's your name, boy?" she asked.

The dog cocked its head to the side, but said nothing.

"Normie!" a woman's voice called. "Leave our guest alone."

Captain America and Lindy Reynolds came walking out of the kitchen, and without the layers of building separating her from the woman, Lindy looked tired. The dog - Normie - flew to Lindy and made a few mid-air laps around her before settling back onto the ground. The Captain looked, well, about like always. There was a confidence in his bearing that... Kara let out a puff of air, the act blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes. The star spangled man looked like a man with a plan. "Captain," she said.

"Power Girl," Captain America said. "Welcome to the Sentry's Watchtower."

"Is this...?" Lindy asked.

The Captain nodded "Power Girl, this is Lindy Reynolds. Lindy, this is Power Girl."

Despite the awkwardness she felt, Power Girl smiled, and put out a hand. Lindy shook it. It was obvious that it wasn't something Lindy was used to doing, but she seemed to appreciate the gesture, at least.

"Lindy has some questions for you if you're up for answering them, but first, I wanted to tell you that Tony was wrong." Captain America met Power Girl's gaze, and in his eyes she saw the image of a man who lived up to his convictions. "There's no condition attached to you working with the Avengers. We could really use your help, but it's not a precondition for anything: we're going to help you and your sister because it's the right thing to do, not because of anything we might get out of it."

Kara nodded thoughtfully, and truth be told, she couldn't help but be impressed.

He reminded her of Kal-El.

And then Lindy looked to Captain America, who nodded. Then she looked to Kara. "Please, Power Girl," she said, "I need to know: how did my husband die?"

Power Girl felt a lump form in her throat. And she told her.

* * *

><p>OK. She was here. Hot MILF-lady was here. Karen wasn't going to make the same mistake she'd made in the other world when she'd met the woman. Wasn't going to humiliate herself again. This time, she was going to play it cool.<p>

Janet van Dyne walked into the room, and she smiled pleasantly. "You must be Karen," she said, with just the right note of friendly warmth in her voice.

Karen looked up. Took in the sight of the woman. Her flawless exercise of fashion. Impeccable makeup choices expertly applied to enhance what she had (and what she had was a lot). Healthier than the alternate. Not so pale. And that same amazing It was the same woman, but even so... no, she was going to be cool. She wasn't going to humiliate herself. Not this time. She tried to think of something clever. Stared. Stared.

"Gah..." Karen said intelligently.

An awkward silence fell. Then Janet raised an eyebrow. "Well," she ventured, her tone vacillating between nonplused and flattered, "I'm glad to see I've still got it, even if it's not the boys I'm bringing to the yard."

Karen blushed. "... Sorry," she managed. Cool. Clever. Not humiliating. Nope. Not even a... OK, so she couldn't convince herself of that even in narration. Her sole consolation: 'At least this wasn't as bad as last time.'

Janet shook her head to indicate that she'd taken no offense. "Let's try that again. You must be Karen."

Karen kind of wished she could sink into the floor. "It's nice to meet you again, Ms. van Dyne."

Janet pressed her lips together at the 'again,' but didn't ask, for which Karen was greatly relieved. "All right. Let's see what we have to work with. I normally have people who do this for me, but in this case..." she shrugged. "OK. Take it off."

Karen blushed once more. "... What?" she asked, trying not to sound choked.

Janet rolled her eyes. "The turtleneck sweater you're wearing? So I can take your measurements?"

Oh. "... I knew that," Karen said unconvincingly. She stripped out of the sweater, revealing a black tank top underneath with the word 'GΣΣK' printed on it.

Janet gave Karen a look as if to ask, '... really?' Karen shrugged uncomfortably, as if to say, 'Really.' Then Janet moved in with the flexible measuring tape, first wrapping it under the armpits around the fullest part of her bust, then under the breasts and around the rib cage, then around the waist, followed by the hips. A glance to Karen's open closet and the presence of only one dress and no skirts was quickly followed by a check of the sleeve and the inseam. After each measurement, Janet tapped a set of numbers into a weird data pad she was carrying. While she knew that computer technology was better here than it was back home, but not as advanced as what they'd had in that other world. … but either way, it was hard to concentrate on a shiny computer tablet thingy with Janet van Dyne taking her measurements.

… Taking her measurements. Yeah, even thinking that still felt weird. Karen had never actually had tailored clothing when she was Xander, so her only experience with it was as a girl, and... yeah. Weird. Uncomfortable. Necessary evil.

"All right," Janet said. "Now let's have a look at your wardrobe. I doubt you'll have anything suitable, but we can hope, and it will give me an idea of the sort of clothing you prefer."

Karen nodded, doing her best to maintain her dignity. "Right. Clothes. Because, clothes." She gestured to the closet.

Janet went to work. Very little was said until she was done, and it didn't take long, with her pausing only to raise an eyebrow at the Power Girl t shirt and to comment on the dress.

"Well," she said, "Whoever made this dress definitely has impeccable taste."

Karen grinned. "If I ever see you again," she said, "I'll tell you that you said that."

Janet stared at Karen. "Care to explain?" she asked.

Karen's grin faded. "Er. Oh." A beat passed. "Alternate universe. Alternate scientist you. It was this whole thing."

"I see."

"She was..." Karen began, trying to think of everything she knew about the other version of Janet, everything she'd learned from their brief meeting. "You. With wings and stings and..."

"Karen," Janet said, "Don't."

Karen fell silent for a long moment. "You don't want to know?" she asked at last.

Janet pressed her lips together. "I have enough regrets of my own without adding the might-have-beens of another life," she said.

"Oh." Oh. Oh, hell. "Sorry," Karen said. "I guess I shouldn't have... I guess I'm not making the best impression."

Janet shook her head. "It's all right. You seem like a nice enough girl, Karen, and I'm not going to hold your meeting an alternate version of me against you." She gestured to the closet, then. "Nothing suitable, by the way. I'm not surprised. I think I can have a small selection ready before the Atlanteans get here tomorrow. How does that sound?"

Karen made a face. "... long as it isn't humiliating," she said.

"I don't design humiliating," Janet replied as she walked to the door, opened it. Then, in the hallway, she looked back and grinned. "I design fantastic." And with that she was on her way, leaving Karen with a pile of every piece of clothing she owned on her reinforced bed.

* * *

><p>Around noon, Karen's stomach really started voicing its objection to her having skipped breakfast. She thought about ignoring it, but she gave up after about half an hour and made her way down to the cafeteria to forage for something to eat. One of the things she still wasn't used to about being in this body was how different foods tasted. Not different from Power Girl's body, though: different from Xander's. Some things tasted better. Some things tasted worse. She wouldn't have minded so much if it weren't for the twinkies. She gave the dessert a mournful look as she passed by the vending machine on the wall. They just didn't taste that good anymore. I mean, sure, they weren't bad. They weren't gross or anything. They just weren't <em>special<em>. A few male gazes followed her as she went.

With one last mournful glance at the twinkies in the vending machine, Karen loaded her tray up with food and then joined Julian, Cessily, Santo, and Noriko for lunch. The cafeteria was practically empty like always, and full of light. The place had been built for more than hundred, but there were only twenty four. She figured that for the others, it probably felt even emptier than it really was.

"This whole thing is bullshit," Julian was saying as Karen sat down. "Laura and Cessily got attacked in broad daylight. Why aren't the X-Men mobilizing to track down the people that did it?"

"Don't be stupid, Julian," Noriko said. "O*N*E already caught the woman who did it."

"Maybe," Julian replied, "But what about the people she was working for?"

"What makes you think they aren't?" Cessily asked. "I talked to Professor Summers and Professor Munroe this morning..."

"Are they really Professors?" Santo asked.

Cessily cut off in mid-sentence. Everyone looked Santo's way. Santo blushed. "I mean, do they all have doctorates or somethin'?" he asked. "I know Professor Xavier does, but the rest, I'm pretty sure..." he trailed off.

Cessily rolled her eyes. "Like I was saying, they told me that they were doing everything they could to find out who was responsible for the attack. They're working with the FBI."

"Not O*N*E?" Karen asked.

Cessily shook her head. "O*N*E isn't an investigaty-type, uh, thing."

"'Investigaty-type thing?" Noriko echoed, a touch of incredulity in her voice.

Cessily glared. "You know what I mean."

"Hey, anyone seen Laurie today?" Loa asked from across the cafeteria. A couple sets of eyes went her way, Karen's included.

It was Noriko who replied. "I think she went with Josh to New York," she called. "They left this morning with Miss Pryde."

"Oh," Loa said, approaching the table. "… do we know why?"

Noriko shrugged. "Maybe someone was hurt? Maybe they're on a date? I don't know."

"Hmm. Thanks, Noriko."

"Any time."

Santo's rumbling voice broke in again. "Hey, why do we call Shadowcat 'Miss Pryde' and Cyclops 'Professor Summers' when they're both teachers, and neither one has a...?"

Cessily rolled her eyes and cut him off in mid-sentence. "Left field, Santo. This is you, coming out of it."

As Loa went back to what she'd been doing before, Karen frowned. "Speaking of people we haven't seen all day, where are the Cuckoos, anyways?" An awkward silence fell upon the table. "... What?"

"Seriously?" Julian asked. "You didn't hear?"

Karen felt like tiny alarm bells were going off inside her brain. "Didn't hear what?" she asked.

"Identical triplets gone wild? Flying Cuckoos? Emma locking them all up down in the lab?"

"Everyone's been talking about it," Cessily said. "With your enhanced hearing, we all kind of assumed..."

Karen stared, eyes wide. At that moment, a new voice called out from the entrance to the cafeteria: "Super senses don't count for much if you don't pay attention."

"Kara!" Julian and Cessily said in near-unison.

Power Girl approached with an amused look on her face, and sporting a new haircut. It wasn't appreciably shorter, but it'd been completely cleaned up: no more shagginess. It looked good. Several male gazes followed her as she walked to the table.

Karen looked up. "Hey," she said.

"Hey kids," Kara said. Karen and the others all made a face at that, but Kara kept right on going, "Just here to drop off a little something I picked up for Karen." She produced a pair of scissors. Karen had no idea where she'd been keeping it: her costume didn't have pockets. "Did you guys know there's a team called the Young Avengers?"

All eyes went to Santo, who blushed once more. "We heard," Julian said.

Kara offered, and Karen took the scissors. "Scissors? Wait, you got your hair cut. How did you...?"

"Magic scissors," Kara said, a touch of pride in her voice. "Courtesy of Wiccan."

Julian, Cessily and Noriko exchanged dubious looks.

"Magic... scissors," Karen echoed. "What do they do?"

"Cut hair," Kara deadpanned. "Anyway, Karen, do you have a minute? I'm helping the Avengers with a couple things, and I only have maybe ten minutes to spare, but I've been meaning to talk to you about something."

"You want to have a talk?" Karen asked dubiously. "I was kind of planning to go down and visit Irma. We had plans tonight, and..."

"This is important," Kara replied. "Can your visit wait?"

Karen thought about that, then nodded. "... Yeah, I guess it can."

Cessily blinked, then exchanged glances with Noriko. "Right. Guess we'll see you later, Karen."

Power Girl led Karen away. Half a minute later, they were in Karen's room, with the door shut behind them. "OK," Karen said. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

"Er," Power Girl began, "It's kind of about your body."

"What about my body?" A beat passed, and then Karen realized exactly what Kara was getting at. "... Oh." Cue the embarrassment.

"I don't know how much they taught you about..."

Karen blushed so deeply that even her ears seemed to turn red, and tried to cut PG off in mid-sentence. "I took sex-ed, okay?"

"... Kryptonian physiology," Power Girl went on.

Karen stared. She wanted to say that she really didn't need the sex-talk. She wanted to say that she wasn't planning to sleep with any guys anyways. What she actually said was, "Gah..."

Power Girl seemed to grow even more uncomfortable. "This is just as embarrassing for me as it is for you," she said. Karen raised an eyebrow, and Power Girl reconsidered her statement. "... This is almost as embarrassing for me as it is for you."

Karen thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "I'll buy that," she conceded.

"OK," Power Girl said, "So you know how you get, ah, excited, sometimes?"

"I took sex ed, Kara. I know this stuff. I know all about the human reproductive system." Karen looked down and grimaced. "Including some things that I'd sleep better at night if I didn't. I've been a teenager before. I know what I have to worry about."

Power Girl grew irritated. "You've been a male teenager. And human teenagers don't have to worry about accidentally triggering their heat vision if they get aroused!"

Karen stared. "... uh..."

"Just shut up and listen, OK?"

Karen nodded faintly. "Shutting up. Listening."

The next few minutes were perhaps the most uncomfortable that Karen had ever experienced. The basics were mostly the same, but some things... not things she wanted to think about.

"OK," Power Girl was saying, "So through some weird fluke of convergent evolution, humans and kryptonians are actually biologically pretty similar. You could technically classify us as mammals. We could technically classify humans as... well, I won't bore you with the details. Other issues aside, we're actually equipped to theoretically be able to have sex with humans. But we're not the same species. We're not even related. So under ordinary circumstances, you can't get pregnant unless you do it with a male Kryptonian. That probably won't be an issue, but sometimes the higher powers get a little frisky with their 'mystical pregnancy' nonsense." Her voice gained an angry edge when she mentioned mystical pregnancies. "If that happens, best way to deal with it is to rewrite history so it never happened."

Karen stared, eyes wide, utterly horrified by the thought of pregnancy and herself in the same sentence. Then something occurred to her. Something from Power Girl's past according to DC. Mystical... oh. "... wait, is this about Equinox?"

Power Girl looked confused. "Who?" she asked.

Karen kept right on staring.

"Right," Power Girl said. "So the next thing you need to remember is, when you're thinking about getting, um, physical, with a human? Don't."

Karen blinked. "Don't?" she asked.

"At least, not without a room full of lamps that mimic red sunlight. Even then..." PG looked uncomfortable. "Higher molecular density. We've got two hundred and twenty seven kilos packed into this frame." Karen still felt mortified, but she sucked at metric, and it must have showed in her expression, because Power Girl went on, "Five hundred pounds, Karen. You could bruise someone ridiculously easily if you aren't careful. Or worse."

Karen had never blushed as badly as she was blushing now, but she had a question. A very pressing question. Because... well, Irma. "Uh, not that I'm going to do anything, or have done anything, or... anything," she said, trying to get to her point, "But just out of curiousity, what if you're, uh, on the bottom?"

Power Girl smirked, as if amused by the idea, and Karen stared, wide-eyed. "Seriously," she said, "Even under the effects of red sunlight, you've still got proportionately stronger muscle tissue. Everywhere."

Karen nearly died of embarrassment. "... Can we have a different conversation now?" she asked.

"You don't need to be embarrassed of your own body, Karen. There's nothing shameful about it. I know it's not going to be easy for you, but... sure. We can have a different conversation now." A beat passed. "Oh," Kara said, "Last thing: stay away from diet soda."

Karen blinked. "Huh?"

"Not kidding," Kara said. "Our bodies do not react well to the stuff. It isn't pretty."

"... Thanks."

"So listen, I'm going to be working with the Avengers for a while, so I won't be around as much, but if you need my help for anything, call me, and I'll come."

"Thanks. I... it means a lot."

Kara drew her in and hugged her, then, and it felt strange, but good. Karen smiled, and hugged Karar back. "Thanks," she whispered. Then, in a normal tone, "You too, though. If you need my help - with anything - I'll come."

It wasn't until a minute after Kara had departed that Karen realized that a brand new government issued ID - a green card - was sitting on her bed. Surname: Zor-L. Given name: Karen. Planet of Birth: Krypton. Species: Kryptonian. A photo of Div... of herself. She wasn't sure when it had been taken, but what surprised her was the surname. Starr was what she'd been going by. Zor-L? She didn't know what to make of that, but it warmed her heart all the same. "Thanks, Kara," she whispered to the empty room.

A minute later, Karen realized that she'd forgotten to ask Kara her opinion of the O*N*E situation, and kicked herself for it.

* * *

><p>Down in the lab, things were... worse than Karen had thought. Full containment protocols were in effect. Every entrance was sealed. The interior air supply had been engaged, no longer bringing in air from outside. The reinforced bulkheads had slid down into place. Every sensor in the lab was focused on three blonde teenaged girls still in their pajamas. Celeste was crying, Irma looked thoughtful. Phoebe looked angry.<p>

"Oh, God. Irma, Phoebe, I can feel you again," Celeste said. "I thought..."

"Shut up, Celeste," Phoebe snapped. They'd been telepathically cut off from each other for most of the day. In the same room but unable to be the unified consciousness that they were. One of Emma's precautions. One which Emma had only just withdrawn.

_*Phoebe, why are you-* _Celeste frowned, and continued aloud, "You're pulling your mind away? But... Miss Frost stopped blocking us from each other! Phoebe, why?"

"Because I'm tired of your whining," Phoebe replied. Irma tried not to smirk, but couldn't quite manage it.

Celeste sniffed, and wiped at her tears, but couldn't quite stop. And then Irma was withdrawing from the telepathic link as well. "Not you, too, Irma," Celeste said, sounding completely lost. "Please, don't leave me alone. We're the Three-in-One! I'm not even really ME unless we're Three-in-One."

"Something's happening to us, Celeste," Phoebe said. "And you want us to pretend that everything's still the same? We were flying, and there was that... voice."

"She's right," Irma said, looking down at the floor. "I don't know if it's always been there, or if it's new, but I can feel it. There's something in us. Something dark. Something... wrong."

Phoebe nodded. "And we're going to find out what."

* * *

><p>END CHAPTER 03<p>

Author's notes:

Well, this turned out to be the hardest chapter I've ever written for this story. I had to abandon the idea of this as a part two of the previous chapter. Not because it didn't continue from where the other one left off, but because they weren't really about the same things. Mercury Falling may give you a good idea of where it takes place in the X-Men storyline, but that isn't the story of this chapter.


	17. DU: Flashpoint

It was late afternoon in New York city, and the summer heat had broken. It had lingered longer than some might have liked, but summer's hold was fading at last, and autumn moving in to take its place. The days were bright and lovely and no longer so stifling. The evenings were growing cooler. Today, with the sun slowly westering towards the horizon it would reach in another few hours, Kara Zor-L was finally taking a moment to relax. It was perhaps an hour and a half after she'd given Karen 'The Talk,' and she still felt the occasional flash of residual embarrassment. Helping the Avengers to lend assistance to a broken down alien refugee ship that had wound up in low earth orbit had helped her take her mind off of it. There was a war going on out in the galaxy. Sounded pretty bad based on what she heard from the refugees. If this universe had a Green Lantern Corps, she hoped they were on the case. Either way, if it came to it, she would help however she could. But that was a matter for later.

Kara had brought a lawn chair out onto an isolated balcony on the upper floors of Stark Tower equipped with an unnecessarily high-tech barrier that shielded it from the normal effects of the wind at the upper levels of a skyscraper, and she was aiming to do some sunbathing. It would have been a simple indulgence for a human, but for her, bikini-clad and lying back in the lawn chair, it was a chance to relax, to draw in some extra power from her power's source, to revel in the feel of the light of a yellow sun upon her skin, and to finally get around to reading those comic books that Xander-Prime (her mental name for the Xander that hadn't become Karen) had given them back in Karen's home dimension. They were all in a stack next to the chair, mostly of trade paperbacks. She picked up the first - The Road to Flashpoint - and began to read.

Ten minutes later, Power Girl had finished reading the entirety of the Flashpoint event, including every single spin-off. "...OK," she muttered to herself as she closed the last issue, "So the Flash broke history, and after that..." She blinked. According to the note Xander-Prime had left, what came next was 'the New 52,' some of which he'd included in the collection. She glanced over the options. Huh, Mister Terrific. It felt really, really weird to be holding a book about one of her friends from the JSA. Not weirder than the fact that there was a trade paperback detailing the entire run of a recent 'Power Girl' comic, but weird. Still, the only way to find out what changes had come from the Flash's misadventure was to read on. She began to flip through 'Mister Terrific.' Mister Terrific fighting someone in armor, and that's weird, they're in London, flashback, actually Michael's son. Then Karen Starr showed up as Mister Terrific's, er, friend-with-benefits. That was weird, not least because she'd never thought of Michael that way. Then she saw the party scene. When she read the line, 'I don't want to start a turf war,' PG's eye began to twitch. When the her on the page uttered the words, 'I get it. It's because I'm a white girl, isn't it?' She was staring in horror. "What."

A pause. Power Girl's brain tried to process this. Failed. "What?"

Another pause. "What?!"

Tony Stark's electronically processed voice emerged from a speaker set below the security camera on the wall. "Everything all right?"

"I'm..."

"You're...?"

"I'm..." Kara stared at the page. "I'm a complete moron," she said hopelessly. Then she blinked, turning to look at the camera. "... Are you spying on me, Stark?" she asked.

"... No. No I am not."

OK. That was irritating. Tony Stark, douche-bag. Still, she had bigger worries. Without another word, Kara stood up, collected her things, and strode purposefully into the building.

* * *

><p>Destination Unknown<br>by P.H. Wise  
>A Power Girl Crossover Fanfic<p>

Chapter 4: Flashpoint

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's chapter contains dialogue and situations taken from Phoenix Warsong. Marvel owns that, too.

* * *

><p>"... I don't know what's happening, Dr. McCoy," Celeste said, trying not to let the fear she felt show in her voice, "It's like when Esme left. And Sophie died. But worse." She shuddered. "So much worse."<p>

Celeste and her sisters had been separated. She was sure it was Emma's idea. Her sisters were still cutting themselves off from their link, holding themselves apart. "I feel..." Alone.

"No one's dying, Celeste," Dr. McCoy gently replied. Celeste was pretty sure that every diagnostic device in the lab was in use. Every scanner. Every tool. She didn't want to look into Dr. McCoy's thoughts. She didn't want to risk learning what he and the other X-Men thought was happening. Especially if...

"This is different," she insisted.

"Not according to my readings," Dr. McCoy said. "You're the same girl you were the first day you walked through these doors. No new psionic signatures or ectoplasmic energies or alien symbiotes or lightning-bolt forehead scars. Just your average, everyday secondary mutation."

Celeste tried to think of a way to put it into words. Some way to explain to Beast what was wrong, how wrong it all seemed, how distorted. "But I can... **feel**," she said. Not her best effort.

"That's normal," Beast said with a smile. "I know," he went on, his tone light, "Every thing is confusing. There's distance between you that wasn't there before. There's a technical term for that. It's called 'growing up.' I know how it feels..."

He kept talking, but she didn't hear it. Couldn't hear it over the sound of her own blood roaring through her veins. Celeste swallowed, took a breath to calm herself, and tried again, "You don't understand," she said. "At first I thought it was just Phoebe. But it's inside of me, too. I'm... wrong."

"I'm going to tell you a secret, Celeste," Beast said. "Almost everyone I know feels the same way."

He invited her to see the evidence in his thoughts, and she did. It didn't make her feel any better.

* * *

><p>Irma Cuckoo's head was throbbing with the effort of keeping her newly discovered telekinetic abilities under control. Secondary mutations weren't a new phenomenon. They'd seen it plenty of times before. Usually it lead to things like a diamond body, or blue fur sprouting everywhere. This secondary mutation, though, or whatever it was, it felt... different. Wrong. The link between herself and her sister-selves was there, hanging in her thoughts like a silver thread, but she wouldn't touch it. Not now.<p>

It was worse when they were joined.

Emma had separated them. Celeste was somewhere in the secure lower floors. Phoebe was outside on the school grounds. Irma was trying to make her way to her room to sleep the whole thing off. She was so distracted, she didn't notice that Karen was nearby before the boy-turned-girl called her name. "Irma!" She looked up in time to see Karen standing at the far end of the hallway, her expression somewhere between surprised and relieved. And then, in the space between blinks, there was a rush of wind, and Karen was there. Then she was in Karen's arms, and Irma leaned into her, only distantly aware of the pleasant way Karen's breasts pressed against her body when they hugged, and of the sense of warmth and of **presence** she always seemed to feel when Karen's body was close to hers.

"Sweet, merciful Zeus but I was worried," Karen murmured.

"Me too," Irma said. She wanted to tell Karen everything. As she stood there in the other girl's embrace, it occurred to her just how ridiculously kissable Karen's lips looked, just how damn sexy she was, the taller girl coming into an almost painful sort of focus in Irma's perceptions. "Karen..." she began, looking up into her clear blue eyes. She didn't finish the sentence. She wasn't sure if she started it or if Karen did: they kissed, and for a moment, the whole world seemed a thing of soft lips, the heat of Karen's body against hers felt even through layers of clothing, of carefully controlled Kryptonian strength.

Irma forgot all about her headache. Wisps of smoke seemed to curl around their feet.

They were being watched. Three boys had come out of a room and stopped short to stare at the sight of a lip-locked Irma and Karen.

The moment passed, and the world went back to normal, and Karen noticed the watchers. "Got nothing better to do, guys?" she asked.

"Nope," one of them called.

"We're good," said the second.

"Don't let us stop you," the third chimed in.

Irma rolled her eyes, regaining her focus. The wisps of smoke faded. "Come on," she said, taking Karen's hand. "Let's go somewhere more private. We have a lot to talk about."

* * *

><p>When Kara Zor-L walked into the control room at the heart of Stark Tower (fully clothed this time - she'd changed in the bathroom), Tony Stark grimaced, and she noticed. Tony was standing by the main display, on which could be seen a dozen different situations around the world that might need Avenger intervention if they should continue the way they had been. Steve Rogers, also out of uniform, was seated at a nearby console studying one situation in particular. Kara glanced at the screen. HYDRA activity on the rise. New base suspected in Oklahoma, near Broxton. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent James Madrox investigating.<p>

"Come on, Power Girl," Tony began, "I'd have explained over the comm if you'd given me another five seconds: that balcony is an obvious security hole. I wasn't spying on you: the area is under constant surveillance by our computer system. It analyzed your voice, it identified your tone as 'distress,' and I got an automatic notification. I wasn't..."

Kara rolled her eyes. "Relax, Stark," she said. "I've got bigger things to worry about than peeping toms, innocent or otherwise." She looked Steve's way and held up the backpack that she carried. "Captain?" she asked.

"I'm listening," Steve replied.

"Good," Kara said. She emptied the contents of the backpack out onto a table a few yards back from the view screen. "Because we need to talk about comic books."

"Comic books?" Steve asked, slightly bewildered.

"Yeah," Kara replied. This was going to be awkward, but it wasn't the first time she'd had to explain something that had sounded insane at first blush. "This is going to sound crazy, but hear me out..."

Two minutes later, Tony and Steve were staring at her with unreadable expressions. "OK," Tony began, "So you're saying that the whole history of your world is recorded in a parallel world in, um, comic book form?"

Kara nodded. "Yes," she replied, steadfastly refusing to allow embarrassment any purchase. "I'm saying that."

Steve spoke next, "And that before you came back from there, Divine's counterpart - the girl whose consciousness was copied into your brain during a brief period in which you shared the same body, and remained there until you transferred it to the Divine from your homeworld's body in order to break Maxwell Lord's conditioning - gave you a backpack full of these comic books, which appear to chronicle your world after you disappeared from it?"

Kara didn't correct Steve on that. Karen was still a little sensitive about the whole 'I used to be a guy' thing, and after the whole 'I'm in Divine's body now' thing happened, the version of the story they'd told the Avengers... it was true as far as it went, but it left out a few details. Like the fact that Karen had been a boy named Alexander Lavelle Harris. Kara figured she more or less understood why. She took a breath. "Look, I know this sounds completely insane..."

Tony shrugged. "We ever tell you about the time the Fantastic Four met God, and he turned out to be a comic book writer named Kirby?"

Kara blinked. "...Seriously?"

"No," Tony replied, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards.

Kara tried not to let her exasperation show on her face. Passive-aggressive Tony was certainly better than 'actively being an asshole' Tony.

"Tony," Steve said, and Tony looked contrite.

"Sorry," Tony said. He seemed to consider something.

Steve looked at Kara. "I've seen a lot of very strange things in my time," he said. "If you say that these comic books somehow record the history of your world more or less accurately..." He paused.

Tony broke in. "I think what Steve is trying to ask is, would you be willing to submit to a telepathic scan so we can make sure you aren't just completely crazy? We've got a history of that in the Avengers, and I'm just about Wanda and Sentry'd out."

Steve gave Tony a warning look, but Tony didn't back down. "I'm serious," he said. "You want me to back off, Steve? That's my condition."

Kara's eyes narrowed slightly, her body language growing visibly more hostile. "Emma vouched for me," she said.

"And I'm one of the few people in the world who knows exactly what that's worth," Tony said, his tone dismissive. "I know better than the trust the White Queen. I'd trust Xavier to look inside your head and be truthful about what he found, but he's out in Shi'ar space." Tony was steadfastly not meeting Steve's gaze, but Kara saw the disappointed look on Captain America's face. He'd expected better of Tony Stark, and he'd been disappointed.

He didn't look like he was going to back down, and Kara's heart sank. "If I agree to this," she said, "I'm having it supervised. If not by Emma, then one of the students at Xavier's."

"Fine by me," Tony said.

"I guess you've got someone in mind?" Kara asked.

"You could say that," Tony replied, not quite smirking.

"In the meantime," Steve said, not giving Tony a chance to say anything more, "I've got news about the hammer: it's been claimed. Someone took it, and we know who." That got Tony's attention, and Steve paused for a moment before continuing. "Donald Blake."

The name meant nothing to Kara, but Tony looked visibly stunned. "... what?" he asked.

"I'm surprised that you missed it," Steve said. "He's been in Oklahoma, rebuilding."

"Rebuilding what?" Tony asked. A beat passed, and then he paled slightly as he realized exactly what Steve meant.

Kara glanced from Steve to Tony and back. "Who's Donald Blake?" she asked.

"Thor," Steve and Tony replied in unison.

Kara blinked. A god, huh? That was unexpected, but it didn't wow her the way their delivery of the name seemed to imply they expected it to. "When will he be here?" she asked.

"The god of Thunder," Tony tried again.

Kara met Tony's gaze, not feeling particularly impressed. "I've met gods before, Stark," she said.

Tony tried to hide his disappointment, but Steve just shook his head. "He's not coming here," Steve said. "We're going to him. We'll leave..."

"As soon as Ms. St. Croix confirms that Kara here isn't going the way of our last two powerhouses," Tony interrupted.

Steve met Tony's gaze. Silence hung between the two men for a long moment. Tension seemed to build. And then Tony looked away.

"Great," Kara said.

* * *

><p>"OK," Karen said, "What's going on? Why were you and your sisters locked in the sickbay?" And Karen's thought rang out with the sudden realization, 'Oh my God, I just used sickbay in a sentence where I wasn't talking about Star Trek.'<p>

Irma tried not to roll her eyes at the other girl's thoughts. It wasn't polite. "Do you know what a secondary mutation is?" she asked. Immediately, Karen's thoughts showed that she did not, but Irma waited for her to say so before she continued. "Mutants are born different, but usually our powers don't manifest until puberty. Sometimes it happens earlier. Sometimes it happens later."

Karen nodded, and her thoughts held some vague associations with shaving her (his) chest and legs (but not arms, for some reason), and her (his) voice beginning to crack. "Mutants get an extra special puberty surprise. Got it."

They were in Irma's room - the one she shared with her sisters. The bed hadn't been moved back up yet, and its absence was conspicuous, but the couch worked just as well. It was getting easier. At first, controlling the new powers had been like trying to roll a boulder uphill when the hill's been coated in glycerine. Now it was more like just plain rolling a boulder uphill.

"Right," Irma said, briefly shutting her eyes to concentrate. Her head continued to throb, but that was a distant thing now. "But the full potential of a mutant's genome isn't necessarily expressed immediately. DNA doesn't work on one-to-one correspondences, and it doesn't have simple on/off switches. Not even the X-Gene. Whether particular genes express themselves, and even **how** they're expressed, can be influenced by the environment, diet, stress, whatever. Secondary mutation is what we call it when some combination of environmental factors triggers a change in someone's mutant abilities."

"Did you get that from reading Doctor McCoy's mind?" Karen asked, her tone wry.

Irma smirked. "Some of us pay attention in class," she replied.

"That's not a no," Karen observed. When Irma didn't dignify that with a response, Karen went on. "So that's what's happening?" she asked. "You and your sisters are having a secondary mutation?"

"Unless you've got a better idea for why we're suddenly manifesting new powers. I know I was never telekinetic before, and I definitely couldn't fly."

"Hey, maybe there was just a really, really narrowly targeted shower of cosmic rays that hit your bedroom," Karen said. "I hear that works for getting superpowers."

Irma laughed, and when she did, she felt a sudden surge of heat and pain, a build-up of power which she ruthlessly suppressed. Her amusement faded. "... I wish. The thing is, whatever's going on, I'm pretty sure it's dangerous. I don't want you to get hurt, Karen."

Karen raised an eyebrow. "Kind of invincible, here."

"That's not what I'm worried about," Irma said, and focused her thoughts on the speech and language centers of Karen's brain.

When Karen next spoke, it was with a tone that was the most horrible imitation of Emma Frost that Irma could imagine, complete with the most atrocious British accent the world had ever seen: "What **are** you worried about?" she asked, and then blinked. "There's something wrong with my... oh. OK. Point taken. Can you stop now?" A brief pause, and then a thought crossed Karen's mind that made Irma shudder, and she immediately released Karen's brain from her telepathic influence. The stream of incomprehensible syllables that followed were delivered in a normal Karen-like tone. Disappointment rippled through Karen's thoughts. "Awww," she said. "I wanted to hear what bad-imitation-of-Emma sounded like reciting Klingon love poems!"

Irma tried very hard not to laugh. "No," she managed. "Just... no."

"Are you supposed to be smoking like that?"

Irma blinked. "What?" she asked. She looked down. Smoke was rising up from the carpet. A burn mark slowly spreading out from beneath her feet. "... No," she said. She shut her eyes, focused, tried to force it back down.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Karen asked, her concern showing in both thought and expression.

Irma struggled visibly, trying to force the power back down, trying to hold off what was coming. But it wouldn't go back. Something was rising. Heat. Fire. Life. "No," Irma repeated. "No, no, no, no..." She opened her eyes. They were full of fire.

Karen's eyes widened.

The world dissolved in flames.

* * *

><p>On the school grounds, Logan's combat training class was going along much as it always did. Which is to say, he was making life a living hell for his students, and they were all going to be better for it. But just because Noriko understood the value of the exercise didn't make it any less painful to be beaten upside the head by a bamboo staff in the hands of of a surly Wolverine.<p>

"Focus, Noriko," he told her, his tone gruff.

She did. For a moment, Noriko was completely focused on the sparring session, nary a single stray thought to distract her from the exercise. She didn't think: she acted, existing utterly within the moment. She lost herself to the Zanshin, flowing from one effortless deflection to another, counter-attacking, never pressing beyond her ability but completely in control of it. ... And then one of the Cuckoos showed up in her pajamas. The blow she should have easily deflected hit her dead center on the forehead, and she fell on her butt, momentarily stunned. Logan had pulled the blow, but... wait, Cuckoo-clad pajamas? No, that wasn't it. Pajama-clad Cuckoo. Yeah.

"Afternoon, Phoebe," Logan said. "Five points off for coming to class late. Ten points down for showing up in your jammies."

Noriko wasn't sure how Logan could tell them apart. Maybe by smell? That was weird. She clambered back to her feet.

"What is this, Hogwarts?" Phoebe asked. She leaped into the air to avoid Logan's attack and stayed there, her eyes shining with a fiery light. 'Secondary mutation,' Noriko thought to herself.

Nori moved to join Laurie and the rest of the class on the sidelines as Logan and Phoebe sparred. A pair of Sentinels and a crowd of mutantville refugees had gathered to watch. Some of the younger refugee children were going to be participating in the classes, soon. Scott and Emma had decided. Toad was nowhere to be seen, and Nori was glad of that, at least. Bastard had deserved what he'd gotten from Karen, given what he and his friends had almost certainly intended...

"What's with Phoebe?" Laurie asked, and her voice brought Nori back into the moment. Noriko glanced at her friend and shrugged. "Showing off her new powers, I guess," she said.

Unseen by student, faculty, military, or refugee, the ground beneath the graves of Sophie and Esme Cuckoo began to shift.

* * *

><p>In the lab, Celeste looked down at her shoes.<p>

"You'll learn to fight it," Hank said. "To control it. Because here's another dirty little secret for you: this school isn't just about learning how to defend ourselves from others. It's about learning how to protect others from **us**. Emma knows. She'll help you."

Celeste sighed. It was rising now. Power. Fire. Life. She shut her eyes and focused, trying to force it back down. "How's she supposed to help me when she has the same problem?"

Hank frowned. "Child, are you all right?"

When Celeste opened her eyes, they were blazing with a fiery light. "No," she said. "I don't think I am." She grit her teeth. "Doctor McCoy. please... back away. I don't want to..." She shook her head. "No. NO! The link was back, and her sisters snapped into her mind with a suddenness that was like a bucket of icy water to the face. Phoebe's anger at Logan growing ever higher, riding the rising tide of... whatever it was. Irma's control slipping. "It isn't right!" she said aloud. "WAIT!"

Hank backed away, his eyes wide.

Fire blossomed around her.

* * *

><p>Karen stared. Her adrenaline spiked, and with it came the strange slowing of time that seemed to be tied to the Kryptonian stress response: her mind shifted gears, and she watched the flames rippling towards her. Watched the fire flowing across the ceiling like water. She could actually see the floor, the wall, the furniture blackening as it burst into flame. The heat rolled over her in a wave, and it HURT, and it had NEVER hurt. Even when Sentry had thrown her into the sun, it hadn't hurt; the sun's embrace had drawn her into a state of near ecstasy. But this, this was different. This brought pain. Smoke was rising from her body in advance of the wall of fire. Even as she watched, the exposed skin of her arms reddened as though from sunburn.<p>

She was going to die. Merciful Zeus, she was going to die. … Wait, when had the Sentry thrown her into the...? 'Now is not the time, Karen,' she told herself, interrupting her own thoughts. The fire rippled ever closer. Irma's scream hung in the air, her eyes wide.

And then, at the last possible moment, a thought occurred to her: 'I have freeze breath.'

Though it hurt to do so, and she'd never used the power before, Karen breathed in sharply, drawing painfully hot air into her lungs. And then she fell backwards, getting as low as possible even as she sent out a gale force sub-arctic temperature stream of air into the roiling flames. She didn't know if being low would help, but she knew that heat rises.

When her arctic breath met the wall of flame, the room seemed to toll like a bell. A peal like thunder erupted from the place where cosmic flame met Kryptonian breath, except it didn't stop. It built upon itself, growing ever larger as a the roiling mass of air and fire collapsed into a blast of wind that blew out the walls of the room.

Water sprayed everywhere. The pipes had ruptured. Something painfully hot passed over her, and water flashed to steam. Then it was gone, and the water was pouring down onto her again. Karen opened her eyes, got up, and rushed to the open space that used to be the exterior wall in time to see Irma, Phoebe and Celeste flying in the air, shrouded in a brilliant raptor made of fire. On the ground, a body was burning. Sentinels were moving to intercept the girls. One of them gestured, and a blast of flame took the machine, splashing across its chest and sending it to the ground, sections of metal visibly melted by the heat of the blast.

People were screaming. Karen had to act.

She was on the grounds between one heartbeat and the next. "Irma, Phoebe, Celeste, STOP!" she shouted, her voice booming above the din.

Chaos erupted on the grounds of the Xavier Institute. "THE PHOENIX!" someone screamed. "THE PHOENIX IS RISEN! IT IS THE SIGN! MERCATOR SPOKE TRUE!"

"STAND DOWN, MUTANTS," a voice boomed, "STAND DOWN OR BE FIRED UPON!"

Irma met Karen's gaze.

"Irma, stop this!" Karen shouted once more. The reply came in Karen's thoughts. Irma's mental voice, two minds touching, a feather-light sense of Irma's presence. _'__I__'__m__sorry__.' _

The firebird rose, bearing the girls within it. The Sentinels opened fire, but their shots did little but provoke further blasts of flame: another Sentinel fell, and then another. Then the firebird shot off towards the horizon, leaving naught but a sonic boom in its wake.

Professor Summers was shouting. "Logan, you stay put and heal. Emma, get Hank to lock down the mansion and tell Peter and Kitty to meet us at the jet!" The burning body was Logan. He had looked better, but he was alive.

"Done," Emma replied.

"Karen, stay here!" Summers yelled as he and Emma raced into the mansion.

Like hell.

Karen rose into the air and rocketed off after the Cuckoos, and a second sonic boom rattled the windows of Salem Center.

* * *

><p>Back in New York, Kara Zor-L had only just returned to her apartment when the sound-wave hit. She was back in civilian clothes, just starting to rummage through the fridge for something to eat for dinner. The apartment had been a surprise: it was in the same building as her apartment in her home universe. Hell, it was on the same FLOOR.<p>

The windows rattled. It would have been imperceptible to a normal human, but she heard it. Heard the sounds transmitted through it, faint but distinct: the sound of Karen's voice. "Irma, Phoebe, Celeste, STOP!" She did a quick calculation in her head of the distance between her apartment and the Xavier Institute. "STAND DOWN, MUTANTS!" this voice was mechanically amplified and electronically processed. "STAND DOWN OR BE FIRED UPON!" There were others. Voices that meant nothing to her, screaming things she had no context for. The distance from the Xavier Institute and the speed of sound. This happened less than three minutes ago.

By the time the fridge door swung shut, she was already gone.

* * *

><p>When Kara arrived at the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, she arrived as Power Girl. Despite her hurry, she had the foresight to use her communicator to announce her arrival in advance: she wasn't challenged when she arrived, and that was good. The place looked more like a bee-hive that had been kicked than like a school. It was chaos. Sentinels and helicopters buzzing in the sky. Children wailing in the refugee camp. Security guards rushing about every which way. Major military equipment on the move. There was a hole in the school again, and by that, Power Girl figured that it was probably Tuesday. A charred, blackened, waterlogged hole where the Cuckoos' room used to be was a bit more concerning than just a generic hole, however, and she made a beeline for it.<p>

"You assured us that you had the situation in hand!" a man's voice said angrily. It sounded like it was coming out of a speaker. Kara glanced about. Below her, in a private office, Valerie Cooper was being chewed out by her boss via video-call.

"Sir, there was no way I could have anticipated a group of students becoming possessed by the Phoenix!"

Phoenix?

"Phoenix or no, Divine left the school on your watch, again. I don't think I can shield you from the consequences this time."

OK. So Karen left. That was bad. Power Girl was moving, now, searching for someone who could give her more information. Preferably one of the teachers, but if not them, then...

The sound of a door opening. Power Girl let her vision slip beyond the normal visible spectrum. A group of students was checking the rooms to make sure that nobody had been left behind. The upper floor was otherwise evacuated. One of those students was right about to come out into the hallway.

"Noriko!" she called.

Noriko stepped out of the room she'd been checking and glanced Power Girl's way. "Karen!" A beat, "... Kara, I mean. What are you doing here?"

"I heard what happened."

Noriko raised an eyebrow. "From New York? Six minutes ago?"

Power Girl nodded. "I'd have been here quicker except for the whole speed of sound thing. I need to speak to one of the teachers. Are they around?"

"Logan and Doctor McCoy are in the underground levels. We're getting everyone to the shelters, Kara. The school's on lockdown."

"Thanks, Nori."

Noriko nodded. "You're..." Power Girl was gone. "... Welcome."

PG was down the hall and then the stairs in the space between heartbeats. She did a quick scan of the building with her x-ray vision and spotted Beast and Logan coming up from the lower levels on the far side of the campus. She rushed out the door and crossing the intervening space in a matter of seconds, arriving at the exit they were due to emerge from just in time to be blindsided by a rotted fist to the face. She was more startled than anything else, but surprise soon mingled with that primal revulsion of rotting things when she saw the thing that had struck her: the dead, rotting, but still ambulatory body of a teenaged girl. Worse, one that, despite its condition, bore no small resemblance to the Cuckoos. Even as she stared, a second body emerged from below, this one missing a forearm.

Power Girl stared. "... Zombie Cuckoos?" she asked, her tone wavering between incredulous and horrified.

The one that had struck her smirked. "Look, Sophie," she said. It's the host body that spawned the degenerate little parasite our sister is dating."

That brought her out of her state of shock. "Hey!"

The second zombie-Cuckoo laughed, and the sound of it made the bile rise up in the back of Power Girl's throat. She REALLY hated zombies. Particularly since the last one she'd faced had been her own cousin with a Black Lantern ring. "Oh no!" the Sophie-zombie said, "The girl with the psychic vulnerability the size of a small moon is here to stop us. Whatever shall we do?"

"Right now you're thinking about whether or not you can take us both down before we shut off your brain," the first girl said. "A surprisingly intelligent brain. Impressive. You're smarter than you look, blondie. With an outfit like that, I'd figured you'd be more boobs than brains."

Spider-webs seemed to settle over her limbs. A tiny flash of anger kindled in her mind, and with it, the spider-webs seemed to strengthen until they were made of adamant. A sense of outrage and helplessness washed over her. Power Girl couldn't move. She couldn't... she wouldn't lose to these monsters! She grit her teeth as she struggled against their control.

"Strong willed, too," Sophie said. "If we needed to maintain this for more than a few seconds, it might actually be a problem."

"Power Girl!"

The telepathically induced trance burst like a soap bubble. Power Girl came back to herself suddenly, and there was a moment of disorientation. The girls were gone. Hank McCoy was waving a hand in front of her face. She shook her head. "... I really hate it when that happens," she muttered sourly.

"Tell me about it," came a second voice. Logan, a few feet behind Hank, wearing his full Wolverine costume, a rotted, severed forearm stuck to his claws. "You here for Karen?"

Power Girl nodded.

"She took off after the Cuckoos. Scott and Emma are out there in the first jet. We're going to be following in the second jet. You comin' with?"

"Looks like," Power Girl said.

"Sounds goods." Logan looked to Beast, then gestured down at the severed forearm, and the gleaming metallic bone that could be seen through the torn, rotted flesh. "Let's go. Pack your microscope."

* * *

><p>The Cuckoos had come home. It was called 'The World.' They had arrived, made their way down past the defenses, past the relics of previous projects, here, to a vast underground chamber filled with their clone-sisters, floating naked in glass tubes filled with green fluid.<p>

"Welcome home," said a male voice. "We've all been waiting for you."

A video screen followed them, attached to a long metal stalk, projecting the image of a man in a lab coat.

"Home...?" Phoebe asked.

The man on the screen smiled indulgently. "Yes, Phoebe. Back at Weapons Plus. Back in the World."

Phoebe frowned. "Wait a minute. This isn't right..."

"Of course it is, Phoebe. I sent you Cuckoos away, nested you with the X-Men. I needed you to develop your talents, but now, well, look around you. This is where you belong."

Celeste didn't seem particularly impressed. "Naked in a test tube? I don't think so."

"Now, Celeste..."

"Who is this guy, anyways?" Celeste asked, cutting the man off.

The man smiled once more. "I'm..."

* * *

><p>"Doctor John Sublime," Hank said, "Creator of the Weapon Plus project."<p>

"Weapon plus?" Power Girl asked.

"A secret project variously supported at one time or another by the American, British, and German governments," Hank said. "An attempt to create a solution to what the world leaders saw as 'the Mutant problem.' To allow homo sapien to remain relevant in the age of Homo Superior's ascendence."

Power Girl frowned. "I suppose it grew more and more extreme as time passed, each iteration of the project more hostile towards metahumans than the last?"

"Not towards powered individuals in general," Hank corrected, "Just towards mutants."

Power Girl looked confused for a split second. "Oh. Sorry, metahuman is my world's word for mutant."

Hank and Logan exchanged glances, then shrugged.

"What does this have to do with the Phoenix?"

"We don't know," Logan said. "The Phoenix is a wild card. We don't know why it's involved."

"Indeed," Hank said, "But with or without the Phoenix, if the girls really are the product of the Weapon Plus program, there's no telling just how..."

* * *

><p>"...dangerous they might be," Scott said.<p>

"I know," Emma replied.

"Scott," Colossus said, "We have a visual." The Blackbird was making a low pass over a region near the southern coast of England, where a vast geodesic dome, visibly damaged and half buried in the earth, rose just above the tree-line.

"That's the World all right," Scott said, looking out the window. "Where John Sublime made his mutant-killing super-soldiers. And I'm betting he's left behind a dozen killer car-cops for us beneath that smoke. Hold us here, Peter. It's time to figure out if we're here to rescue these girls... or destroy them. Kitty, any wireless traffic?"

"Lots of noise," Kitty Pryde replied from her console behind the others. "Only clear signal is an encrypted S.H.I.E.L.D. beacon. Looks like they have an agent on the ground."

"Any sign of Karen?" Scott asked.

Kitty shook her head. "Not yet."

* * *

><p>"Hush, Celeste," Phoebe said.<p>

"But this is creepy, Phoebe! He put them in bottles, and..."

Phoebe frowned, looking out at the vast superstructure of cables and the tubes filled with Cuckoos that dotted the landscape. "If these are our sisters, Dr. Sublime, why can't we hear them? We're telepathic. They should be, too."

"You just don't know the language yet," Sublime said. "Listen harder. Mindee understands."

Irma was staring into one of the glass tubes. "... Irma," she corrected the doctor absently.

"What?"

"My name is Irma, not Mindee."

"... but you understand, right?"

Irma frowned. "I think so. I'm... starting to."

"It's a sound you've heard all your lives," Sublime said. "It's in your bones. Energy transformed into information. Your sisters were made to collect it. And now it's time for you to use it."

Something shifted, then. Three pods rose up from within the superstructure, each sized to fit one of them. Irma stared. She could feel her pulse in her temples. She reached out towards it.

"Wait," Phoebe said, "Don't touch it."

Irma stared at the pod. "... What if Sublime's right?" she asked. "What if this is what we're meant for?"

"We might have been, before," Phoebe said. "But now we're meant for something else." She opened her hand, allowing a tongue of flame to manifest in the air above it. "When the Fire came for us, it scared the X-Men. That's why they're coming to stop us even though they don't really understand why we're here. It scares Celeste. I can feel her right now, trying to snuff it out."

"I'm not doing anything!" Celeste snapped.

"She thinks it's the Phoenix, here to destroy everything. But it feels so right to me, and all of this, here, feels wrong." She clenched her fist around the flame, snuffing it out.

"Phoebe," Irma said, "How do we know we should trust the Phoenix? It doesn't have the best track record. What if it's wrong? What if it's just... trying to confuse uAAAAAAGH!" her words turned into a surprised scream as metal cables snaked out from the pod, looped themselves around her body, and then snapped her backwards into the pod with a loud thud.

Celeste let out a scream, turned, and ran.

"Irma!" Phoebe cried, reaching for her sister.

Irma sank into the nest of cables, a few tiny ones burrowing into her flesh, the rest just coiling around her. "I'm... I'm part of it now," she said in a dazed tone. "And it's so … clear. Listen:" Her eyes rolled back in her head. "I can... hear it..."

Phoebe embraced the fire, and it billowed out from her like a cloak. "NO."

A vast bulk rose from the superstructure. A monstrous creation of metal cables and moving parts, with the video screen attached to the end of one of them. The video screen shifted to the center of the creature's mass as cables wrapped around Phoebe, seemingly heedless of the fire. "I'm sorry, my dear," Sublime said, "But I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist."

"I... hear... them..." Irma muttered.

At that moment, the wall of the chamber exploded, and Karen burst through, pulling a wave of debris into her wake as she went. Several tubes shattered as she passed. "I got a feeling this is one of those things best heard from a distance," she said as she yanked Irma out of the pod, assisted by a few quick blasts of heat vision. Irma saw the consideration in her thoughts, the split second weighing of staying to retrieve Phoebe as well against just rescuing Irma. The decision was made: get Irma out first, then go back for Phoebe. "Yoinks and away!" Karen called out as she made for the exit at top speed.

Irma shuddered. She was herself again, but when she'd been joined to the others, it had felt...

A chorus of telepathic voices, each one identical, rang out in the chamber. _"__Karen__,"_ they said. _"__You__'__re __Karen__. __But __you__'__re __also __Xander__. __And __Divine__. __How __strange__." _

Karen was slowing, now. Struggling to maintain speed but unable to do so. "... Hold on," she murmured. "I'm..." she grit her teeth. "I'm getting you out of here."

Irma stared at her girlfriend, and in that moment, she felt a powerful upwelling of affection for the other girl, warming her heart and her cheeks. "Karen..." she said.

The telepathic voices spoke again, this time with a note of cruel glee. _"__We __heard __a __joke__, __once__," _they said._ "__So __a __girl __with __negligible __telepathic __resistance __flew __into __a __room __with __a __thousand __telepaths__."_

Karen struggled, flailed, and then fell from the sky at the edge of the room, barely managing to twist herself so that Irma landed on her and not the other way around. Irma scrambled off of Karen, rising to her feet. "OK," Karen conceded, "... So... maybe I didn't think this one through..."

_"__No__," _the chorus replied. _"__You__ really __didn__'__t__."_

Karen stiffened, spasmed briefly, and was still, staring blankly, chest rising and falling, and completely catatonic.

Irma glared into the room. "Stop! Let her go! She has nothing to do with this!"

Phoebe's fires had been snuffed out: she'd been rendered unconscious before she could do more than melt a few cables. Even now, she was being drawn into the pod reserved for her. _"__She__'__s __a __nuisance__," _the telepathic chorus said. _"__Better __to __wipe __her __mind __now __than __risk __she __might __interfere __later__."_

Horror welled up in Irma's heart at the thought of it. "NO!" she cried, pushing against the telepathic influence of her thousand sisters, an ant trying to stop a Tsunami.

_"__Come __back __to __us__, __and __we__'__ll __reconsider__. __We__'__re __only __doing __this __because __we __love __you__. __We __need __you__, __Irma__. __You__'__re __part __of __us__. __All __the __rest__? __It__'__s __just __a __distraction__. __It__'__s __all __so __unnecessary__."_

Irma grit her teeth as she focused more and more of her mental reserves into the struggle. "I wont... let you..." she hissed.

_"__You __don__'__t __love __her__. __You __can__'__t__. __It__'__s __all __right__, __Irma__. __We __understand__. __We__'__re __the __only __ones __who __can__. __And __you __know __you __can__'__t __stop __us __either __way__. __Why __are __you __bothering __to __fight __us__?"_

Irma visibly struggled. Her eyes were glowing blue, now. The fire burned within her mind, all but singing to her with a strange siren song, calling for her to embrace it. She was losing. The Fire wanted her. Her sisters wanted her. Tears began to flow down her cheeks, only to boil completely into gas in a matter of seconds. Smoke was rising from her body, now as she staggered forward, towards the pod.

_"__You __can__'__t __win__,"_ her sisters said. _"__Can__'__t __save __her__. __Can__'__t __stop __us__. __Give __in__, __Irma__. __Come __back __to __us__. __We__'__ll __let __her __live __if __you __come __back__."_

Irma embraced the Phoenix. Flames roared out from her body into a huge, blazing firebird. Her clothes were consumed in an instant, and then replaced by something new: skin tight, red and gold, and a great golden firebird on her chest. Her eyes glowed with a fiery light, and she snapped her sisters' telepathic assault like it was a twig. When she spoke, her voice was different, filled with power and with confidence. "Don't tell me what I can't do."

Karen groaned and sat up, rubbing her head. "... Anyone get the number on that bus?" she asked.

"Karen," Irma said. "I'm holding their telepathic assault at bay, but if I go I'm afraid I might burn her up. I need you to get Phoebe."

Karen blinked, and then she was on her feet and fully aware. "Phoebe, right." She looked towards the pod, and the vast creation that had risen to defend it.

"Irma," Sublime said through the video screen on his mechanical creation, "She's lying to you. The Phoenix is lying. Don't do this. Don't do this to your family."

"Phoebe and Celeste are the only family I have," Irma said coldly. "Karen, do it."

Karen cracked her knuckles and grinned.

* * *

><p>The second Blackbird had arrived. Power Girl cracked her knuckles and rose to her feet. She could feel her heart rate increasing. Her own species' equivalent to adrenaline building inside her system. Below, a massive geodesic sphere rose above the treeline.<p>

"Scott," Hank said into the radio, "This is Hank. We lost the zombie Cuckoos, but we've just arrived in the second Blackbird. We're coming in just below your jet. We're..."

Hank cut off as a massive fire tornado erupted through the ceiling of the dome, singing the first Blackbird as it billowed upwards into the sky.

"... Oh dear," Hank said, his eyes wide.

Power Girl followed the other two to the exterior hatch. "Ready when you are," she said.

Hank nodded. He opened the hatch. "The jet's on autopilot," he said. "It'll get us over the hole in the dome. Power Girl, if you wouldn't mind getting us down intact?" He paused. "You know, this is looking pretty bad..."

"Worse than you think, Hank," Logan replied.

The zombie Cuckoos attacked. "Hello, professors!" Sophie called as she pulled Hank out of the aircraft and sent him falling towards the dome below.

"So glad you could join us!" Esme added, striking Logan across the face to distract him as she yanked him out in turn with her other hand.

Hank and Logan were falling, zombie Cuckoos clinging to them, clawing at them, shrieking awful, inhuman shrieks.

Power Girl was there. "I," she said, seizing hold of both Esme and Sophie from behind, "Have had enough..." She felt their telepathic influence growing. She had to move quickly or they'd shut her down again. Her mind shifted gears. The world slowed down. Here, now, she had all the time in the world. With a heave, she threw them both into the tornado of fire. "Of ZOMBIES!" she finished.

Their bodies crackled like leaves, and were consumed.

"Not to be rude," Beast called, a distinct note of panic in his voice.

Power Girl blinked, and then flew down to catch the falling X-Men. "Sorry," she said. "I kind of have this thing about the undead." She descended into the dome, holding Hank with one hand, Logan with the other. "At least they didn't have Black Lantern rings this time," she muttered.

The World was in ruins. Fire blazed around them. Vast pieces of machinery had toppled, scattering parts every which way. Power Girl could see the X-Men, now, gathered in front of one of the Cuckoos - Power Girl couldn't tell which one, but she was surrounding by a fiery aura.

"Kara," Logan said, "Toss me."

Power Girl blinked, looked at Hank, who shrugged, and then threw Logan down at the group.

In mid-flight, his claws popped out. He angled himself towards the girl, and... Kara's eyes widened as adamantium claws carved through Celeste's skull from back to front. A sick horror rose up within her. "What... the... HELL?" she asked, waiting for and dreading the moment when the girl would fall.

But the girl didn't. Fire erupted from her wounds, sealing them, healing them without blemish or scar, and she turned to look at Logan with an amused smile. "Funny little man," she said.

"Oh hell," Logan said.

There was an explosion of fire, and something blindingly hot shot upwards past Kara. She looked up just in time to see Phoebe, shrouded in a raptor of flame, clad in white and gold with a golden flamebird on her chest, ascending into the skies. _"__I __AM __LIFE__,"_ the girl whispered, but it seemed to fill the air like a thunderbolt all the same. _"__I __AM __FIRE__. __I __BURN __AWAY __WHAT __DOESN__'__T __WORK__. __MY __NAME__ IS __PHOENIX__."_

* * *

><p>A great mass of cables swung towards Karen, and she accelerated towards them, momentarily breaking the sound barrier within the vast chamber that held the girl-filled tubes: the creature's limb gave way long before Karen did, and she plowed through from one end to the other, sending shredded wire and cable and interior mechanisms flying in every direction.<p>

"Karen!" Irma called. "You can play with the mechanical monster later! Get Phoebe!"

Another mass of cables rose to block the path to Phoebe, and Karen let loose with a quick blast of heat vision to reduce them to ashes. "I'm working on it!" she yelled, zooming down towards the pods. More animated cables were rising up to challenge her, but she was already at her destination: she cut her forward momentum, coming to a complete stop at Phoebe's pod with a suddenness that would have killed a normal human. Another blast of heat vision severed the cables holding Phoebe in place: she collected the girl into her arms. "Which way?" she asked.

"Over here," Irma called, zooming towards the exit.

"I see," said the voice of John Sublime. "Interesting. Did you know that Phoebe's memories include a very interesting incident? I doubt she meant to overhear it, but it can be so difficult not to when you're a telepath."

Karen's eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?" she asked.

Phoebe was stirring now. "Ugh..." she moaned, clutching at her head.

A reproduction of Kara Zor-L's voice rang out in the vast chamber: "I know it doesn't need to be said just how much I'm trusting you by giving you this knowledge, but I'm saying it anyways. If Karen and I are going to be working with the X-Men even short term, you need something that you can use against us if we end up compromised. What happened with Divine can't ever happen again."

Karen paled. "Oh, crap."

Sublime laughed. "Yes, that." The sound of a hundred ports opening, shifting, clicking. And then the chamber flooded with artificial red sunlight.

Karen poured on the speed even as she felt her powers ebbing, fading, sapped away by the influence of the red sunlight. She was almost to Irma. She was almost...

She fell from the sky for the second time in five minutes, and this time, when she hit the ground, it hurt. Once again, she managed to twist to let her passenger land on top of her. "RAO but that hurts!" A pause. "... Oh God, I just swore by Rao. Somebody shoot me."

"I'm working on that," Sublime said. "Give me a few moments, and I'll see what I can arrange."

"Karen!" Irma cried, the firebird fading as she descended. "Are you alright?"

Karen's whole body felt sluggish. Like she was moving through syrup. God, had this been normal back when she'd been the prisoner of the Fantastic Four? "I've... been better..."

Phoebe was on her feet now. "I'm... I'm me again," she said. She clenched her fist and glared at Sublime's device. "That... that was unforgivable."

Karen struggled to her feet. "... Run... now, revenge... later..." she ground out.

"No," Phoebe said, letting the fire ripple around her. "I don't understand. Irma, you could burn it all. **I** could burn it all. Why should we run?" She paused. "You don't trust it, do you?"

Irma looked away. "... I'm afraid. When I lost control earlier, I almost killed Karen. I don't want to take the risk of what might happen if I lost control again."

"Listen," Karen said, "I'm a liability right now. My powers don't work in red sunlight. I need the sun to recharge. We need to leave."

"She's right, Phoebe," Irma said. "Please, come with us. We have to go."

Phoebe turned towards the creation which still bore the video image of Doctor Sublime. "Then go," she intoned, the fire around her forming into a flame raptor as she lifted off the ground. Her clothing was consumed, and replaced a moment later by a skintight costume all in green and gold, with a golden firebird emblem upon her chest. "I have work to do. Phoenix work."

Irma felt the final thread slide into place. Each had embraced the shard of the Phoenix that dwelled within them, and now there was a kind of resonance building in their link. Feedback of a sort. Something was building. She grit her teeth. "You'll kill them!" she said. "All of them! You can't do that! It isn't their fault they were made into this!"

"You don't get it, do you?" Phoebe asked. "This is right. This is Phoenix. We are life. We are fire. We burn away what doesn't work."

"We're NOT!"

"You can't just kill them all," Karen said.

"I thought you were running away?" Phoebe asked.

"Guess not," Karen replied, lifting her hand up, clenching and unclenching her fist, getting used to her depowered state.

Phoebe's eyes seemed molten now, the firebird blazing around her so hot and so bright that Karen could no longer look at her. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't," she said.

"It's wrong," Karen replied, and Irma nodded her agreement.

"And... time," Sublime announced cheerfully. At that moment, six enormous brain-things inside bulbous, spiked, weapon-covered bodies - car-cops - burst through the hole in the wall that Karen had made. Irma's eyes widened, and she sent a wave of fire into them, reducing three of them to ashes in an instant. Phoebe joined her a moment later, destroying two more.

The last opened fire on Karen before they could stop it. The rotary cannon mounted on the thing fired in what felt like slow motion, bullets passing through the air, striking her flesh, passing through it, tearing through her body despite its increased molecular density. It had only been firing for half a second before Irma's flame blast reduced it to slag. In the space of that half-second, fifty five rounds had been fired, and seventeen had struck Karen.

It didn't hurt. Karen stared down at her body, watching the blood well up. She was having trouble breathing. Couldn't... get... enough air... Why didn't it hurt? She fell to the ground. Her eyes went to Irma, who was staring at her with an expression of stunned horror. "... why doesn't it hurt?" she tried to ask. What came up instead was blood. It was in her mouth. It was in...

Irma screamed wordlessly, and as she did, the firebird sprung up around her. Her eyes blazed like furnaces. She was crying, and her tears were molten.

There was an explosion from above, and Celeste Cuckoo descended shrouded in Phoenix-fire, her eyes alight. _"__SISTERS__,"_ she called. _"__OUR __GOOD __WORK __MUST __BEGIN__. __WE __MUST __BURN __AWAY __THE __REFUSE __TO __MAKE __WAY __FOR__ NEW __GROWTH__."_

They were one, now. The way they had always been meant to be. All-in-One and One-in-All, and the Fire was the thing which united them, filling in the spaces between, the things that bound them one mind to another.

* * *

><p>In the secondary chamber, separated from the Phoenix now by three feet of metal, Hank McCoy and Kitty Pryde stood surrounded by Cuckoo clones in glass tubes. They had been digging through the computer systems in search of answers, and they'd found them.<p>

Scott's voice came in over the communicator, "Hank! Grab whatever you have and evacuate! We think Celeste is heading your way!"

"I read you, Scott. Just a minute."

"Don't think you have that long!"

"You need to hear this," Hank insisted. "I'm patching you in." He looked to the computer station. "What are they, Sublime?"

"A thousand psionic mutants raised from the harvested eggs of Emma Frost," the voice of John Sublime replied.

"And what do they do?" Hank asked.

"Collectively process information at an exponentially greater power level than any living telepath. Weapon XIV can shatter a person's mind merely by thinking about him. Which is, of course, an excellent way... to destroy all mutants. That power can then be controlled and unleashed via three focal points. Alas, all three focal points are infested with the Phoenix entity, which renders them incompatible with the machinery."

"So the Phoenix is all that stands between us and extinction?" Scott asked incredulously.

"So it would appear."

* * *

><p>The X-Men rushed into the central chamber just in time to see the three sisters unfurl their flame wings for the first time, united as one.<p>

"It doesn't matter what they're for, Scott," Emma said. "They're my daughters, and they're alive. We're getting them out of here."

Logan shot her an incredulous look. "You heart Hank. They're little death machines."

"MY little death machines," Emma retorted.

_"IT IS TIME. WE BURN IT ALL AWAY. SO LIFE CAN GROW AGAIN."_

Emma glanced at the empty pods. "Scott, I have a plan. I'm drawing a picture inside your head..."

Power Girl rushed into the room, saw the artificial red sunlight, saw her fallen sister, and immediately opened fire with her heat vision on the light sources. Her power faded even as she fired, but she destroyed them all, and was at Karen's side. "Karen, stay with me!"

Karen looked up at her as though through a long, dark tunnel. She could see Kara at the far end. "... Hi," she tried to say. More blood bubbled up. Her eyes drifted shut.

"Karen's down!" Power Girl shouted. She glanced at the tubes, and though it occurred to her just how similar the technology here was to the facility on her world where Divine had been created, she brushed the thought away.

"Damn it," Scott muttered, and opened fire on the Phoenix, knocking Celeste out of the formation. All three focused their attention on him.

_"I BURNED OUT YOUR LITTLE DART, PROFESSOR SUMMERS. YOUR OPTIC BLASTS JUST MAKE ME STRONGER."_

"But not smarter," Scott replied.

Emma Frost sank down into Celeste's empty pod, and the Cuckoos whirled around towards her. _"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, MOTHER? YOU DON'T THINK YOU CAN STOP US, DO YOU?"_

Emma smirked. "Not on my own, but with the power of a thousand of your sisters behind me? I think I have good odds."

"Scott," Power Girl called, "I need a hole in the ceiling right now or Karen's dead!"

Scott nodded, adjusted the strength of his beam, and then opened fire at the ceiling, blowing a hole through the level above, and then through the geodesic dome's surface. There was no sunlight pouring through - the angle was wrong for that, but Power Girl grabbed Karen and flew up through the hole. Tried to fly up through the hole. She faltered halfway up. "... Peter!" she called as she slowly sank back towards the ground, "A little help!"

Peter rushed to them, seized both of them around the waist, reared back, and then flung the two girls up through the hole Scott had carved in the ceiling.

Even as a titanic psychic battle broke out between a Weapon XIV-empowered Emma and the Phoenix-infused Cuckoos, Power Girl flew out into the clear, sunlight air. PG could feel the seconds ticking by. Could hear the sound of explosions below. Could feel the yellow sunlight of Sol Invictus revitalizing her cells, recharging her powers. For a long moment, nothing seemed to happen. And then Karen took a breath in her arms, coughed, and opened her eyes.

"... I feel like shit," Karen muttered.

Kara laughed, and there was more relief in it than amusement. "Better than dead," she replied.

A moment later, Karen was flying under her own power, the bullet wounds now little more than puckered, raw sores. Power Girl watched as they slowly but visibly healed, sealed up, and vanished. "Thank Rao for yellow suns," she muttered.

Another series of explosion came from below, and a billowing fireball.

"OK," Karen said, "We need to get back down there. We have to save... everyone." A beat passed. "How did I go from Mr. Fray-Adjacent to Rescue-Girl again? Oh yeah."

Power Girl smirked. "Come on, Nightwing. Flamebird needs rescuing."

Karen rolled her eyes.

They descended into the depths of the World just in time to see an explosion rock Emma's pod, flinging her to the ground. She had second degree burns across the side of her face. Logan was burnt nearly to a cinder again, but he was still breathing. Colossus was unconscious, smashed into a section of wall with his organic-steel forearms visibly melted. Kitty was nowhere to be seen, and Scott was rushing to Emma's side, crying her name.

"Stop!" Karen shouted, arresting her downward momentum. "Irma, you have to stop!"

Three sets of eyes fixed upon the descending Kryptonians. _"I AM PHOENIX,"_ said three voices in unison.

All at once, Power Girl frowned. "... I feel like we've been here before. Have we been here before?" She snapped her fingers. "Oh yeah." She glanced Karen-wards. "This is where you get to engage in one of those 'totally cliched hero-slash-friend fights.' You get to say things like 'I know you're stronger than this,' or 'You can fight it,' and 'This isn't you!' and she'll say things like, 'I can't stop it,' and 'It's too strong!'" She paused a moment. "You game?"

"I'm game," Karen replied.

_"US TOO,"_ the Phoenix said, a slight smirk on each of its three mouths.

"Great," Power Girl said.

Battle was joined anew. The Phoenix opened with a blast of flame, but neither Power Girl nor Karen were there to receive it: it splashed violently against the wall, melting steel, turning rock to magma. The two Kryptonians zig-zagged across the ceiling, evading blast after blast as the Phoenix set the place ablaze. They changed course, then, moving in on her from opposite angles, each unleashing beyond hurricane force winds with her arctic breath into the face of the fire-entity. Cold air met hot, and the roar of the produced wind was nearly deafening. This was no simple battle: this was a duel of elemental forces. Gods did battle in the World, crashing through walls, flinging huge mechanical struts at the Phoenix, deflecting some fire blasts with frost breath, dodging the others.

After two minutes of battle, they paused, each taking the measure of the other.

_"So,"_ said the Phoenix, _"Do you want to say it?"_

Karen blinked. Then she realized what it meant, and she shrugged uncomfortably. "Kara covered it pretty well, so unless you've got anything different you want to add..."

The Phoenix smirked. _"How about this one? I AM LIFE. I AM FIRE."_ With those words it sent a stupidly huge blast of fire at Karen.

Karen tried to counter with her freeze breath, and then her eyes widened when she realized that it wasn't working. Wasn't happening at ALL. So she did the only thing she could think of: she dove. She collided with the ground a second later, but she evaded the blast. As she clambered up out of the crater she had left, Karen glared up at the Phoenix. "I liked Kara's version better!" she yelled.

This time, the attack wasn't a wave of fire: it was a blast of awful concussive force. Her mind upshifted and her reaction time vastly higher than a normal human's, Power Girl managed to evade it. Karen tried to do the same, but felt like she was moving through molasses. She had time to look questioningly up at the Phoenix. _"Still a telepath,"_ it said.

The blast took her, plowed her through six steel walls. "...Ow..." she groaned. Shit. Karen was really starting to hate telepathy. … except if the Phoenix could just shut her off whenever it wanted, why hadn't it? She clambered to her feet and flew back to the main chamber just in time to see Power Girl take a concussive blast from above, smashing her to the ground with a sickening crack.

"... I don't know if anyone's told you," Power Girl said, "Your girlfriend's got a temper."

"She's..." Karen wheezed, struggling for breath in the increasingly hot air of the chamber, "Not as bad... as Cordelia."

By now, Scott had dragged Emma clear of the line of fire, and Colossus rose unsteadily to his feet. "Karen!" Colossus called. "Don't use your heat vision! It will only make her stronger!"

Karen blinked. "... Kind of got that with the whole 'she's made of fire' thing."

"... Right," Colossus said. "I'm just going to sit down for a minute."

A second concussive blast hurled Karen into the wall. _"Sorry," the Phoenix said. "Were you distracted? I can wait."_

Karen grit her teeth and pulled her face out of the steel. "This is not going well!" she yelled.

Power Girl was slowing down, too. No longer moving like a Kryptonian. "Ya think?"

"I'm disappointed, girls," Emma said.

"Emma, wait!" Scott reached for her, but she walked down, back into the line of fire.

"You could split this planet in half if you wanted to," Emma said, ignoring the burns on her face, ignoring the pain they brought. "You're here to do Phoenix work, and we're in your way. Yet I'm still alive. We're all still alive. Why is that?"

The girls glared hatefully at Emma. _"We just wanted to see your face when we burned you to death,"_ they replied as one.

Karen and Power Girl exchanged glances, and then breathed on their own bodies, coating themselves in ice before they each lunged at the girls. "Time to finish this!" Power Girl yelled.

All three girls flung their arms outwards, and a concussive pulse blasted the Kryptonians into the far walls, shattering dozens of glass pods in the process.

They were trying again, coating themselves in ice, coming at the Phoenix from different angles. This time, only Karen went flying. Power Girl made it through the flames, reared back to deliver a knockout blow to one of the girls.

The Phoenix gestured, three as one, and a torrent of fire washed over Power Girl, flowed past her, washed over Emma Frost, and over Scott Summers, who had moved to protect his lover.

Karen's eyes widened in horror. "You... you killed them!"

_"I BURN AWAY WHAT DOESN'T WORK."_

Rage rose up within her heart like a serpent, choking out all else. "You KILLED THEM!"

"No," Power Girl said as the flames died away, her tone a puzzled one. "... She didn't." Below, Emma and Scott were equally unharmed. Even more, Emma's burns were gone.

A disembodied voice. The voice of one of the Cuckoo-clones. _"Mother,"_ it said. _"Mother,"_ came another. _"Mother," "Mother," "Mother..."_

Sublime's voice rang out, "Girls, what are you doing? Why are you leaving your tanks? Stop this at once!"

Karen stared. "The clones are... holding them back?"

"Mother..." Celeste murmured.

_"We don't want you to die, mother,"_ the clones said with their telepathic voices. They were emerging from their tanks, now. Hundreds of them. Almost a thousand, each so very like their mother. _"We love you."_

Emma stared, her eyes wide, reflexively shifting into her own diamond form to block out the suddenly overwhelming love and affection she felt from every single clone.

The Phoenix hung in the air motionless. "... Mother," the Three-in-One said, each voice tinged with sadness. "We can't stop the work the Phoenix has come to do."

"I know," Emma said.

"What?" Karen asked. "What did she come to do?"

"To end the threat to mutant-kind that is Weapon XIV," Phoebe said. "To murder our sisters," Celeste added. "... To break our mother's heart." Irma finished.

_"Please,"_ said one of the Cuckoo clones. _"I want to live."_ Other voices joined it in chorus. _"I want to live." "I want to live!" "We want to live, please..."_

"Can't we stop it?" Karen asked, staring at the assembled group of Cuckoo-clones. "They've... they've broken free of the machine, why is it still going to kill them?"

_ "I burn away what doesn't work."_ The voice was fainter than a whisper, yet heard by all. _"Even freed of Sublime's device, they are a threat. A weapon waiting to be wielded. A danger to mutant and human alike. They will bring about your ruin. They can't help it. I can. I will not allow it. They must die."_

"All of them?" Karen asked.

_"Yes." _

A righteous anger rose up in Karen. "No."

The Phoenix gestured with three pairs of arms, and fire began to roll out across the gathering of clones.

_"We only just realized that we were alive..."_

The first dozen turned to ash. Two dozen. Three dozen. A hundred. Two hundred. And then Karen was there, sending her arctic breath into the wave of fire. The dying screams of Cuckoos all around her: she stood in the face of a god, and breathed forth her defiance, heat meeting cold, each roiling around each other, frozen mist and a cosmic fire, and the fire was the stronger. Wind blasted in all directions, pressing Emma, Scott, and all the rest backwards, clinging to pieces of debris to keep their footing. Karen was losing.

Power Girl landed at her side, adding her own arctic breath. Cosmic heat and unutterable cold roiled around each other, taking up the moisture in the air, beginning to spin counter-clockwise. Clouds began to form within the World. Thunder boomed. Lightning flashed. The wind roared.

"What's happening?" Colossus asked.

Kitty emerged from beneath a pile of rubble and stared, wide-eyed. "They're... they're making a storm..."

It began to rain. A torrential downpour, soaking everyone to their skin in seconds, and still the Kryptonians breathed: the storm spun faster, faster, more and more uncontrolled, the rain boiling in the center, where the Phoenix floated, and rising back up into the storm to fall again.

Yet at last, Karen and Power Girl ran out of breath. They faltered, and the fire roared towards them. Yet just before the flames came a narrow concussive blast: they were flung backwards, taking a pair of Cuckoo clones with them as they went. They hit the far wall and collapsed, and the Phoenix-fire completed its grim work.

The fire faded. Irma, Celeste, and Phoebe fell to the ground.

"Are they..." Scott began.

Emma's voice was utterly without emotion, but tears threatened to form in her eyes. "The Phoenix murdered them. She killed them all."

Scott held her, and Emma let herself be held. The X-Men were on their feet, now. Colossus and Kitty moved to check on the Cuckoos.

"All dead," Emma muttered.

The sound of wind and rain began to fade. It was a slow thing, a gradual wearing away. Silence but for the rain. There was movement at the far side of the chamber.

"No," Power Girl said.

"Not all," Karen finished.

They came forward, each bearing a living clone in her arms.

As Emma Frost looked upon the two that had been saved, she felt the sudden, terrible upwelling of hope within her heart. Her tears were lost to the storm.

END CHAPTER 04

* * *

><p>Author's notes: I really didn't want to recap as much of Phoenix: Warsong as I did, but I eventually figured it was better to recap material that some people had already read than to risk people being totally lost. Even then, I didn't want to just write up a transcript of Warsong and include "Karen said," and "Karen did" here and there. I wanted things to actually go differently. I knew going in that I wanted a different outcome from the canonical one, but I was surprised at how hard it was to actually get one.<p>

Next chapter: Across the Rainbow Bridge


	18. DU: Across the Rainbow Bridge, Part I

There is a moment of clarity that comes when everything has tumbled down, hit the ground, and broken to pieces. When the light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be an oncoming train, and now all the kings horses and all the kings men can only stand and stare at the remains of what was once a living being. When, for all your striving, you fail. It spun beyond your control, wild and dangerous, and now...

_**Now**__**.**_

Irma's return to consciousness was a sudden thing. One moment she was safe and warm and everything was the most beautiful white fire. The next moment, as if a switch had been thrown behind her eyes, the world snapped into existence around her. Smoke still rose from within the chamber, now a hollow echo of its former glory. It had been burned. It had all been burned. There was a faint scent of sulfur and of burned hair. She was lying on her back - she and her sisters both. A jacket had been folded into a pillow for her. The sensory feed from her sisters began to flow back through her mind. They were still in the white place. Still unconscious. Karen was sitting at her side, and she could feel the other girl's worry fading as she saw that Irma was awake. "Hey," Irma said.

"Hey," Karen replied. Then, in a louder voice she called, "Professors, Irma's awake!"

Logan, Kitty, and Hank crowded around almost immediately: Kitty considered her warily, McCoy with curiosity and genuinely warm concern, Logan like a predator sizing up a potential threat.

"Welcome back, Irma," Hank said. "Is the Phoenix...?"

Irma looked away. She could lie, but there wasn't much point. "Still here," she muttered. And it was: the fragments of the being known as Phoenix had nestled into her subconscious, into the link that joined her and her sisters together. It was doing... something. She wasn't sure what.

The X-Men tensed. She saw her own death, and the death of her sisters flash through Logan's thoughts: decapitation. There would be a lot of blood, but surprisingly little pain. A sharp, awful cutting, but the pain would fade, and as her brain starved of oxygen, she would drift away into a sleep she'd never wake up from.

Emma was gone. Her mental presence seemed distant. Muted. There was a resonance that felt like her lingering in the broken machines that littered the cavern, but it was fading.

"Why does this 'Phoenix' have you guys on edge so much?" It was Karen's voice, but Karen hadn't spoken. Irma looked up. It was the twin. The other one. The blonde. Kara Zor-L.

"Ya just fought her," Logan said. "You've seen how dangerous she is."

"I did," Kara said, "And to be honest? She's not the worst threat I've faced."

Kitty raised an eyebrow. "What, you fight gods on a regular basis?" she asked.

Kara shrugged. "Or worse." She smirked. "Sometimes giant gorilla scientists, too. Not sure what that's all about."

The place with white fire was fading. Celeste and Phoebe were waking up. Irma looked their way. She didn't try to confirm Kara's words. Didn't look through the blonde's memories. What could possibly be worse than the Phoenix? Celeste and Phoebe opened their eyes, and the link between them immediately backfilled their minds with Irma's memories of what they'd missed.

"Ow," Celeste said, rubbing her head.

"I guess it's a little late to ask," Karen began, "But what the hell is going on?"

The X-Men exchanged glances, and Irma stared at Karen for a long moment. "Didn't anyone..." she began. None of the Cucukoos had. It wasn't in the link. The X-Men looked uncomfortable.

"Ah," Hank began, "It's a bit of a long story."

"... The Cuckoos are this world's version of Superboy," Kara said.

Karen blinked. "Pre-crisis or post-crisis?"

Kara thought for a moment. "Post."

Karen stared. "Seriously?"

"Right down to the Lex Luthor genetics. Metaphorically speaking."

"Oh," Karen said. "Huh." She shrugged, and the X-Men exchanged bewildered looks. Well, Kitty and Hank did. Logan just looked annoyed.

"Where's Emma?" Celeste asked.

Uncomfortable looks all around. Irma saw the answer in the minds of those present just as clearly as Celeste did: Emma hadn't waited for them. She and Professor Summers had taken the two surviving clones and the injured Colossus in the first Blackbird and flown away. "Oh," Celeste said, trying not to look as crestfallen as she felt. Irma and Phoebe tried, too. Then there was a hand on her shoulder. Karen. Irma looked up.

"Come on," Karen said. "Let's get you three home."

"Not so fast," Logan growled.

Karen turned to face the man, her emotions flaring. Affection. Protectiveness. Anger. A little bit of fear. The absolute knowledge that there was nothing she wouldn't do for her girls. Irma specifically, but also Kara, Celeste, and Phoebe. "I swear to God, Logan," Karen began, "I will punt you into the next time zone if the next words out of your mouth aren't 'you're right, Karen. Let's get the Blackbird ready.'"

Logan's anger rose up like smoke, choking out reason, choking out everything. … Everything except for the image, clear as day, there within his thoughts, of an angry Divine unleashing her heat vision and his world dissolving into agony. A thread of fear joined his anger, and then he was even angrier: angry that he was afraid. "I got one word for ya, bub," he ground out. And then came the distinctive 'snikt' of his adamantium claws extending out through his skin.

Hank and Kitty tensed. Irma, Phoebe, Celeste and Kara all exchanged looks. No, the Three-in-One decided. As kinky as the idea sounded, they weren't going to allow Karen to engage in a dominance challenge with Logan on their behalf. That sort of thing led to people waking up with perforated lungs. Or with Logan spending the next five days thinking he was a nine year old girl. One or the other.

Irma, Phoebe and Celeste focused their powers.

And then Logan floated up into the air, spun about to face the exit, and then gently settled back to the ground. "Wha, what?"

"Let's try that again," the Three-in-One said, each voice sounding in unison.

"This time with a little less testosterone," Kara added.

Karen blushed. "... Sorry," she said.

Logan glared at the lot of them, but especially at Irma, and she immediately knew why: she was still wearing the costume of the Dark Phoenix. Then he stalked off, not quite growling angrily, but visibly bristling.

Kitty let out the breath she'd been holding. "OK," she said. "I'm tired, I'm hungry, I'm sore, and my boyfriend left on the other jet. Can we go now?"

Hank smiled faintly. "I'll prep the Blackbird for launch," he said. "With any luck, Logan will be calm enough to accompany us by the time I'm finished." He looked pointedly at Karen. "Assuming we can avoid any further antagonizing."

"I'll be good," Karen promised.

_'__Liar__,' _Irma thought.

* * *

><p>Destination Unknown<br>by P.H. Wise

An Avengers Crossover Fanfic

Chapter 5: Across the Rainbow Bridge, part 1

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby, but is apparently owned by Fran and Kaz Kuzui. Who knew?

* * *

><p>It was seven forty three in the morning. The days were growing shorter, but it wasn't quite time to set the clocks back an hour yet. An exhausted and thoroughly singed and burned Power Girl landed on her New York apartment balcony, opened the door, and staggered off to bed. Her injuries from the battle against the Phoenix were healing nicely. Probably be gone altogether by the time she woke up. That didn't help her tiredness, though, which was less a physical exhaustion than a mental one - it was hard to get physically exhausted when you had a yellow sun constantly rejuvenating your cells. When she collapsed onto it, the frame of her reinforced bed creaked audibly, but she didn't care. She took the time to strip out of her costume, but putting on pajamas was just too much effort at the moment: Kara settled in under the covers, set the alarm to wake her at eleven, and was asleep in seconds. She dreamed of home, of Kal, of her friends in the Justice Society, but mostly of Atlee.<p>

An hour and seventeen minutes later, the sound of thunderous explosions brought her out of her dream. She lay there on her bed in a stupor for a long moment, not sure what was going on but only knowing that something had taken Atlee away. Another explosion shook the building. Her bloodshot eyes gained focus, and with effort she rose to her feet and slipped back into her costume. "Today sucks," she muttered, walked back out to the balcony, and flew off once more to save the day.

The whole midtown Manhattan skyline flashed past her as she ascended. Empire State building. Godzilla. The Chrysler building. Stark Tower. Her brain backed up a step. Godzilla?

Power Girl stared down at the giant lizard currently peering down from around the corner of of a skyscraper at a group surrounding a naked woman standing in a crater down in front of Stark Tower. Dozens of bystanders. A newly restored Spider-Man, along with Wasp, Luke Cage, Miss Marvel, Captain America and Spider-Woman. Dozens of dead monsters littered the ground.

"Hey," Power Girl said as she set down on the broken street, her interruption breaking the tension of the moment. "Sorry about being out of contact this morning. I was just..." She trailed off as she suddenly recognized the naked woman: it was an almost identical copy of Janet. Except way more gorgeous. And with bigger breasts. And in better shape. OK, all of that probably explained Janet's glare. "OK, I'll bite. Why is there a naked cyborg Janet attacking this city?"

All eyes went momentarily to Power Girl. "That's Tony," Spider-Woman said. "He's getting in touch with his feminine side. And his feminine side? Kind of a bitch."

"He's been mind-controlled and transformed into a woman by Ultron," Captain America explained.

"I prefer She-Me's version," Spider-Man said.

"She-Me?" Spider-Woman asked, her tone a little on the derisively snarky side. "Not in THIS universe, web-head."

"What? It's way less clunky than Spider-Woman."

"Let's get back to the part where I'm about to kill all of you," She-Tony said.

Power Girl stared. "... I never get invited to those kinds of parties."

* * *

><p>It was over two hours later. Eleven AM, and Damage Control Inc. was on the scene, cleaning up after Ultron and Mole Man's respective attacks on the city. None of that much mattered to Tony when he woke up in a clean bed with white sheets in a S.H.I.E.L.D. infirmary, surrounded by strange, ominous looking devices, and with Janet Van Dyne reading a magazine in a nice leather chair next to the bed. "Oh," Tony said. "I'm not dead. That's good." … There was something off about his voice. Something very, very off.<p>

"Welcome back to the land of the living," Janet replied, and as she spoke, Tony realized exactly what was wrong: aside from the differences caused by hearing your own voice instead of someone else's, their voices were identical. He - currently she - lifted up the sheets, and stared down at her own breasts. "... When I blacked out fighting Mole Man, I can honestly say that I did not expect to see this when I woke up," she said.

"Stop that," Janet said, putting the magazine down and looking annoyed.

"Stop what?"

"That's my body you're ogling, Tony. Stop it."

In spite of her shock, Tony smirked. "Pretty sure it's not," she said.

The door opened. Tony looked up in time to see Steve and... her. Kara Zor-L. Walking into the infirmary. She immediately dropped the sheet. "Steve," she said. "Kara." Steve's expression was all business, but Kara looked, well, 'dangerously amused' wasn't a descriptor she really wanted to apply to the Kryptonian, so she mentally refused to do so.

"Hey Tony," Kara said, "I'd leer, but it would probably only encourage you."

"So a guy has to get turned into busty cyborg Janet for you to notice him?" Tony asked.

"I plead the fifth," Kara replied, and winked.

"Well that's just tragic."

"You know, Steve and I can step out for a while if you two would like some time alone," Janet said.

Kara shook her head. "Couldn't do it. No matter what she looks like, it's still Tony in there. I'd never live it down." A beat passed, and she glanced Janet-wards, her corners of her lips twitching as she eyed the other woman. "Besides, you only get a knock-off when you can't get the genuine article. What if we step outside and let Tony and Steve have some time alone, instead?"

Janet laughed. "I'm flattered, but if your twin is anything to go by, I've seen what's under that costume already. Not interested."

Tony became uncomfortably aware of her own arousal at the situation, and the feeling, accompanied by the (to her) disturbing lack of a hard-on brought her back to Earth like a glass of cold water to the face.

Steve looked a little uncomfortable, but if what was being implied bothered him, he didn't say anything. He looked to Tony. "We were actually just about to reprogram the nanobots Ultron flooded your body with to return you to your normal self," he said.

Kara grinned. "Though hey, if you want to take a few days to discover everything being a girl has to offer, nobody's gonna judge you."

"Except me," Janet said.

"Except Janet," Kara echoed a moment later.

Tony glared. "Get me back to normal. Right now."

Steve walked over to a computer console next to the bed, sat down, and typed in a few commands. The equipment around Tony's bed began to glow. "This might sting," he warned.

"A little stinging is a small price to..." Tony's world dissolved into agony. She felt like she was burning from the inside out. Her senses blanked. Everything went white. In her subjective experience, all that existed was heat and pain as her cyborg body was rebuilt on the molecular level back into his armored body. He didn't know how long it lasted, but when it was over, Tony Stark, male once again and clad in his Iron Man suit, collapsed onto the bed. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse, and he was panting for breath. "...That stung... more than... a little," he ground out.

"Walk it off, soldier," Steve replied.

"OK," Kara said. "Evil cyborg Janet-clone Tony has been dealt with. I'm going back to bed."

"Actually," Steve said, "We're going to Asgard."

"Asgard?" Janet asked. "Thor's back?"

Steve nodded.

Kara sighed. "Asgard. Right. Wake me when we get there."

* * *

><p>There wasn't much talk on the flight back from England. Logan's Avengers' communicator went off a few minutes into the flight, but the extent of his reaction to it was to tap a button on the side of it which stopped its beeping and then went right back to glaring at the floor. Karen and the Three-In-One sat together in the folding chairs on the port side of the Blackbird, Irma with her head on Karen's shoulder but otherwise quiet. Each of them still wore their respective Phoenix costumes, and though Karen knew they were having a telepathic conversation, she wasn't part of it. But she provided what support she could, putting an arm around Irma, and trying to think supportive thoughts. She dozed off twice, for an hour or so each time. Eventually, they could see land out the window instead of ocean. Then the ship was decelerating, and after a few minutes of flight over land, the sound of the engines changed. The ship stopped in mid-air, and then began to descend. Karen had a moment's glimpse of the basketball court before it was replaced by concrete and then by hanger as the hanger door slid shut above them, and the ship came to a rest with a thump.<p>

"Well," Karen said. "We're back." The Cuckoos looked at her askance, and she held up her hands and made a warding gesture. "Someone had to state the obvious."

"No," Irma said, "Someone didn't."

Despite Irma's tone, Karen could see the barest hint of a smile at the corner of her lips, and she met it with a grin of her own. "I think it's in the terms of my attendance, somewhere," she said.

Hank put a blue-furred hand on the railing above the area where the girls were only just starting to get out of their seats, and looked down at them. "Off you go, girls. But don't go far. We might have questions later. Or if not us, our military guests."

The Cuckoos nodded as one, but Hank waited until Karen had nodded as well before leaving them to their own devices.

* * *

><p>Valerie Cooper pinched the bridge of her nose. She could feel a headache coming on. She was seated at the rich mahogany desk in the study the X-Men had provided for her to use as an office, and the fact that she had been seated when Hank reported their adventure to her was probably for the best. Hank wasn't the only one here - Ororo Monroe, Kitty Pryde, and Scott Summers were also in the room - but Hank had done most of the talking, and Ororo was there mostly for moral support. "So let me see if I have this straight. Karen Zor-L - the girl who's supposed to be under house arrest, and on whose willingness to play along my career rests - flew off to England to a highly dangerous and classified experimental laboratory created by a notorious villain but now nominally under S.H.I.E.L.D. control to rescue her girlfriend. Said girlfriend and her sisters - long time students at this very Academy - turn out to be part of a doomsday weapon intended to destroy all mutants. Said girlfriend and her sisters are possessed by the God damned Phoenix herself and forced to murder almost a thousand of their own clone-sisters who are also components of the doomsday weapon. Karen and her sister, who was apparently also involved, because hey, why not, fight the Phoenix, and between the whole lot of you you're able to rescue the Cuckoos plus two extras and then expect to just carry on like nothing's changed? Oh, and apparently the three Cuckoos are now active hosts to the Phoenix. That about sum it up?"<p>

Hank exchanged glances with his fellow teachers. "Miss Cooper," he said carefully, "While I do apologize for making your job more difficult, you must have realized by now that this sort of situation is..." he trailed off in search of the correct word.

"Fairly normal for a Tuesday?" Kitty suggested.

"Par for the course," Hank agreed.

Val sighed. "You people are the closest things Earth has to experts on the Phoenix. How do we handle this?"

"Jean would never do anything to hurt us," Scott said, but his voice lacked conviction. There was a certain hesitation in his tone. He knew he wasn't speaking the truth.

"Her record says otherwise."

Scott glared, and Valerie met that glare with a level gaze. "Do you really want me to go over all the times the Phoenix has hurt you?" Val asked.

Scott looked away. "Professor Xavier is the one you want to talk to."

"We don't have Professor Xavier," Val said. "We have you."

Hank glanced at Scott, then returned his attention to Val. "Valerie, how much do you know about the Phoenix?"

"Jean Grey. Omega level mutant. A potentially world-destroying threat that resurrects after a dormant period whenever she's killed."

Hank looked to Scott once more. "I can provide the necessary background if you wish," he said.

Scott shook his head. "No. I'll do it. Without the Professor, I'm... I'm the one here who knows the most." He looked at Val, and she had a distinct sense of gathering weight. When he began his explanation, his voice was no longer hesitant. No longer unsure. It became a thing of confidence, and the long practice of command. The difference might have startled Val if she hadn't known him as well as she did. "The Phoenix is Jean Grey, but it's also the avatar of Life. The Professor once said that she's the nexus of all the psionic energy that exists, all that ever did exist, and all that ever will. And her abilities are beyond anything any of us could ever hope to contain." Scott went on, then. He explained how Jean had first manifested as the Phoenix. Of the M'kraan crystal and the Shi'ar empire. How it had been too much for her. The Dark Phoenix, and what happened after. When he'd finished his recounting, he paused a moment to it all sink in before he threw a life preserver. "Fortunately, we aren't dealing with that: what's inside the Cuckoos isn't the full power of the Phoenix. As near as we can tell, each of them has just a fragment. It's enough to make them some of the most powerful mutants on Earth, but it doesn't put them in the same class as Jean."

"While they are now Omega class," Hank broke in, "They are not, as they say, Alpha-and-Omega class."

Silence. And then everyone in the room gave Hank a pained look.

"Normally," Scott said, "I'd recommend that we confine them to the school until we figure out some way to separate the Phoenix fragments from them."

Val nodded. "And that's probably what I'll be ordered to do."

"The problem is, we can't actually do it. It's the same problem we've had with Karen, except worse. In Karen's case, we could always resort to telepathy to keep her here if we had to. With the Cuckoos, that's not going to work. As powerful as Emma is, I wouldn't want to put her against three active Phoenix-hosts."

"I suppose the fact fact that Irma and Karen have gotten involved gives us less leverage over Karen as well," Valerie commented. Scott nodded. "So until S.H.I.E.L.D. clears Karen, we're walking a political tightrope," Val said. "On the plus side, a little bird tells me that should be happening some time tomorrow. We just need them not to complicate things for us before then." She smiled grimly. "Naturally, Namor can't be bothered to put off his official state visit until then."

"For what it's worth, they're good kids. Phoebe, Celeste, and Irma are a lot like Emma."

Val did not find that to be a comforting statement, and Scott realized it immediately, because he followed up with, "Emma's not as bad as people think."

"I'll have to take your word for that," Valerie replied, her tone dry. "Speaking of which, where is Emma? I thought she'd be here with the rest of you."

Uncomfortable looks were exchanged. "Emma... didn't take what happened in England very well," Kitty offered.

Val pinched at the bridge of her nose again. "I see." She let a beat pass. "I hope this isn't going to be a problem."

"She's Emma Frost," Scott said, his voice ringing with absolute confidence. "It won't be a problem."

* * *

><p>"This is a problem." Emma wasn't sure if it was her voice or not. The world seemed wrapped in wet cloth, and the voice - her voice? - came as if from a great distance. It wasn't the comfortable disconnect of the diamond. This was something else.<p>

Her office was lit only by the glow of her computer screen; displayed thereupon were two windows, one showing three identical girls in the cafeteria, the other showing two more girls identical to the first three sitting on the edge of the same table in the infirmary, with Beast attending to them. She sat at the desk, staring at the screen, and felt... nothing; a deep, endless nothing. A profound numbness that denied the very possibility of feeling.

A thousand of her children were dead. The thought rolled through her mind like thunder, but it didn't bring any fresh pain. It was too large. Her eyes flitted down to the results of the scan she'd had Hank do the moment they'd returned. The image which showed nothing where her ovaries should be. The corners of her world trembled slightly at that. Someone had used her. Violated her. Stolen her choice. Each thought brought a red-hot pin-prick of hatred into the emptiness. They had exploited her for the simple fact that she was female. Her eyes burned. Her cheeks were wet. Was she crying? Turned any hope she might have had for children with Scott into a joke.

The sight of a thousand daughters burning in Phoenix-fire flashed through her mind. Emma clenched her eyes shut, drawing on years of experience as a telepath to bring focus to her disciplined mind.

It didn't help.

Two. Two had been saved. Two daughters she'd never known, and she honestly couldn't say which she hated more: John Sublime, who had created them, or the Phoenix, who had destroyed them. She would never tell anyone, never say it aloud, but she'd never wanted to be a mother. That had been her choice: Emma Frost was not a mother-woman. Once she had begun to suspect what the Five-in-One really were, it had taken her a long time to be at peace with the idea. Then Sophie died, and that had hurt her more than she would ever, ever admit. Then Esme died. Now... this. She'd had a thousand daughters. A thousand bright lights, a thousand little minds slowly awakening, blinking and shining, and now dead. All but five, killed by the thing that still inhabited three of them.

She glared up at the ceiling, her thoughts filled with the image of Jean Grey surrounded by Phoenix-fire, burning and killing without restraint. Jean Grey, and Celeste, and Phoebe, and Irma. Images of Sublime arrogantly harvesting her ovaries, stealing her choice, _using_ her. She clenched her fist, and as she did, flesh rippled into living diamond: Emma Frost had hatred enough for both.

* * *

><p>It took longer than it should have to get ready. Mostly that was because Tony, despite his just having had a very close encounter of the female-Ultron kind, was still pretty sure she was crazy, and wanted a telepath to tell him otherwise. A non-Emma telepath. Which was why Kara Zor-L was sitting in the office of a detective agency out in what used to be Mutant-Town. People still lived here - former mutants, mostly, trying to get on with their lives after the thing that had become the core of their self-identity had been destroyed. Tony was here with her, for all that his doctor had flat out told him he needed a week of bed rest, minimum, to recover from what had just happened to him. They'd been joined by a girl from Xavier's named Betsy. Well, Elizabeth. Nice girl, though Kara couldn't quite figure out how it was humanly possible to position herself in the chair the way she had, with both her bust AND her butt pointed in the same general direction. Kara gave it even odds as to whether or not she was even aware she was doing it. Either way, Tony seemed to appreciate the view.<p>

X-Factor Investigations. It was housed in a five story brownstone near the Mutant Square subway station. Across the street from a bar called the Power Plant. The neighborhood had seen better days.

"You're Karen, right?"

Kara looked up. The speaker was a woman with short red hair, and a voice with a hint of a Scottish brogue. She'd seen the woman before, through Karen's eyes. She shook her head. "Kara," she said. "Karen's my sister." She tried to recall the woman's name, "You're... Ray?"

"Rahne," Rahne replied. "You're identical twins? And your parents gave ye names that easy to confuse? They were brave souls."

Kara smiled faintly, her thoughts going back first to Kal, and then to the memories of Zor-L and In-Z from her time in the symbioship. "Yep."

"Can I ask what brings ya here?"

Kara looked at Tony, who shrugged. She gestured his way. "Tony thinks I'm crazy. Someone named St. Croix is supposed to prove him wrong. Betsy is here to make sure it's on the level."

Rahne blinked. "M?" She gave Tony a look as if that were the dumbest thing she'd ever heard in her life. "You want M to tell you someone isn't crazy? You're kidding, right?" The door to the office opened. A woman walked through. "She'd probably..."

"Be upset to find you speaking ill of her behind her back," the newcomer said.

Rahne smirked, and glanced over her shoulder at the newcomer. "Not if I'd say the same thing to her face."

Monet St. Croix rolled her eyes, but didn't rise to the bait. She was a stunningly beautiful woman. Dusky skin, long, straight hair that was dark as the night itself, distinctly North-African features, warm brown eyes that could draw you in until you... Kara cut short that line of thought with a blush. M raised an eyebrow, and Kara's blush deepened. 'OK,' she thought sourly, 'Teenaged hormones suck just as much the second time as they did the first time. Especially with telepaths around.'

"If you're both done mentally undressing me," M began, and Tony glanced Kara's way with a smirk, which didn't help her blush, and Betsy rolled her eyes, but Monet went on before anyone could say anything, "I'd like to get down to business."

"Nice to see you haven't changed, Monet," Betsy said.

Monet smirked. "Why alter perfection?"

"And just as humble as I remember."

"Right," Kara said, took a deep breath, then asked, "So what do I do?"

"Lie down on the couch, my dear," M said, the corners of her lips curling into the faintest hint of an amused smile, "Relax, and let the telepath do all the work."

"Bloody sapphists and fornicators," Rahne muttered. Her words were too quiet for a normal human to pick up. Too bad she was in a room with a telepath and a Kryptonian.

Kara glanced Rahne's way, but didn't reply. She sat down on the couch, took a few deep, calming breaths, and tried to relax. "... OK. I'm ready."

Monet lowered her voice, her tone low and sensual but still clearly audible throughout the room. "It's your first time, so I'll be gentle."

Kara managed not to blush. Tony coughed. And Rahne made an angry noise and then stormed out of the room. A few seconds later, M couldn't hold back her own laughter any more.

"So?" Tony asked after a few moments had passed.

Kara felt a sense of pressure; a presence in her mind; a sense of something shifting. She tried not to actively fight it. Memories seemed to flit about before her eyes, and as they did, she concentrated on hiding away the particularly private ones. Monet would still be able to get to them if she really wanted to, but she'd also know that Kara had wanted them to remain private. M did look over a few of them, but then, seeing what they were, ignored the rest.

After a few moments, M exchanged glances with Betsy. Both nodded. "Congratulations, darling," M said, looking Kara's way, "You're not crazy."

"Not crazy," Betsy confirmed.

Kara smiled. "Told you so," she said.

Tony frowned. "Not even a _little _crazy?"

Monet shrugged. "Considering everything she's been through, she's far more stable than I would be if our positions were reversed."

Betsy raised an eyebrow. "Weren't you actually in a comparable situation for years, _Penance_?"

"Shut it, Braddock."

"OK," Tony said, "Looks like you were telling the truth." A shrug. "OK then." He turned to Kara, looked her in the eye, and said, "I'm sorry, my bad."

Kara shook her head with no small amount of incredulity. "You're an asshole, Tony."

It was only by virtue of her kryptonian hearing that she heard his murmured reply: "... Sometimes."

* * *

><p>An hour later, Kara was finally on the quinjet heading for Oklahoma, and comfortably dozing. Her impressions of the three hour flight were few. She came to a couple times, heard the conversation around her in perfect clarity (stupid Kryptonian hearing), lost herself in the hum of the engines, and then fell back asleep.<p>

"Kara, wake up."

Her eyes fluttered open. She was lying in a blue glowing pool, staring up at a waterfall with pillars of golden light on either side, blue and gold watery light playing against the walls of the cave, throwing stalactites and stalagmites into spectacular relief. It was warm, and she was safe.

"Kara?"

Kara turned her head. Atlee lay at her side, both of them wearing that ridiculous semi-organic neural interface clothing that covered... well, almost nothing. She remembered this. "This is the spa in Strata," she said.

Atlee nodded. "I wanted to thank you again for saving me from the Ultrahumanite," she said. "The whole experience was... well... awful. Being in that body hurt all the time, and I felt... helpless."

Kara remembered what she'd said the first time. It was stupid. Thoughtless. 'I can imagine it was terrible,' she'd said, 'But that's behind us.' "I'm sorry," she said. It wasn't much better. "I'm dreaming, aren't I?"

Atlee nodded. "Yes."

Kara stared at Atlee, and her voice wavered with emotion as she said, "... I miss you."

"I know," Atlee replied, and as she did, Power Girl felt a sense of hopeless longing through the empathic link that the pool created between them. Hopeless longing mixed with... she shook her head. It was a dream. She wouldn't... "Come back to us, Kara," Atlee said. "Things are bad here without you."

Atlee was snuggled up next to her, though Kara hadn't seen her cross the intervening space. This hadn't happened. This wasn't the way it had gone. She could feel the other girl's body against her own, the warmth, Atlee's arms around her body. And it wasn't real. She missed Atlee, and she missed Kal. The real Kal. Not the Superman she'd come to know, but the one that had raised her in her home universe. Kal-L. Lois Lane. The image of their bodies corrupted by the Black Lantern rings flashed through her mind, bringing with it echoes of all of the horror and despair of the Darkest Night.

"I'm trying," Kara whispered.

"What was that?"

The cave vanished, and Atlee with it. She could hear the hum of the quinjet's engines. Kara opened her eyes. "What?"

Steve Rogers' gaze softened. "Sorry, I didn't realize you were sleeping. You were talking. I thought you should know - we're going to be landing in a few minutes."

She wanted to go back, to dream of Atlee again, but instead, Kara Zor-L sat up straight, stretched, and peered out the forward window.

The flat, dusty high plains of northwestern Oklahoma stretched all around them, yet on the horizon, a great city rested atop impossibly high floating cliffs, bathed in light, gleaming like a jewel in the sunlight.

"Is that...?" she began.

Steve nodded. "Asgard."

Eleven minutes later, the quinjet set down on a landing pad in the high city of Asgard, suspended in midair above a dusty road lined with power lines. The greenery of the city and its great tree stood at odds with the plains which lay all about it. The landing pad itself seemed strange and out of place in a shining city of the gods; for men and women who were kin to Odin walked the streets and markets and high places, each of them divine. Kara Zor-L hopped out of the quinjet where a giant of a man stood ready to greet them. Red-bearded, fat, and dressed all in red, he wasn't what Kara had expected of a god, but she didn't stare.

He did. He stared at her, his eyes wide.

"Hello, Volstagg," Captain America said. That seemed to startle him into action.

"Ah, yes," Volstagg said. He was shaken, and it showed in his voice, but he was quick to recover a more booming boisterous quality. "Welcome to Asgard, friends of Thor, and bless your good fortune, for on this day, the Lion of Asgard is your guide! Come! You are expected."

They went. Two humans and one kryptonian in the city of the gods, with Captain America and Iron Man occasionally stealing glances at Kara to gauge her reactions. She noticed, but she didn't say anything. Coming here, walking among gods, she felt nostalgic for Themyscira. She could almost imagine Diana rounding the next corner with the Justice League in tow at any moment, and... she shook her head to dismiss the thought.

At last they arrived in the great hall of the Odinson, cut from the wood of the World Tree itself, lit with braziers burning brightly, long tables to seat many feasting warriors on either side. Thor himself sat at the far end, with an empty seat beside him, though all the rest were filled. He was everything Kara expected from a Norse god: his hair was long and blonde, his body muscular and without flaw; grace and wisdom rested upon his brow despite the dour expression on his face. And when he saw her, he looked up. His eyes widened, and a silence fell over the hall as every eye turned to Kara Zor-L.

"My Lord Thor," Volstagg boomed. "I present your guests: Captain America, Iron Man, and..."

Thor rose to his feet, interrupting Volstagg's words with his own: "Kára! You're alive!"

Steve and Tony glanced her way as if to ask for an explanation. She had none. Dumbfounded, she stared at the Norse god, and uttered a single, flat, "What."

END CHAPTER 05

* * *

><p>Author's notes: Ugh. I got to thirty pages of material with this, but none of it fit together properly. I think I've gotten it down to twelve pages of material that works, though, and now I can concern myself with putting the rest into chapter 6.<p> 


	19. DU: Across the Rainbow Bridge, Part II

Destination Unknown

by P.H. Wise

An X-Men Crossover Fanfic

Chapter 6: Across the Rainbow Bridge, part 2

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby, but is apparently owned by Fran and Kaz Kuzui. Who knew?

* * *

><p>"Wait," Santo said, "Can we go back to the part where there are two new Cuckoos?"<p>

Laurie made a sour face. "Aren't there more important things going on than new Cuckoos?"

"Probably, but none of them have anything to do with us."

Karen, the Three-in-One, Santo, Noriko, Laurie, Julian and David were variously seated around, standing by, and sprawled out on the couches in the student lounge, next door to the library. The TV was on, and a pair of students were playing video games in front of it, but none of them paid it any mind.

"They're clones," Karen said, as if that explained everything.

"And so are the Cuckoos, apparently?" Laurie asked. "Clones of who?"

Karen and the Cuckoos exchanged glances. "That doesn't matter," Karen said.

David frowned. "I don't know about that," he said, "It could matter quite a..."

Noriko put a hand to her forehead. "We're dumb," she said, interrupting David.

David glanced at her. "What?" Then the same thing occurred to him. "... Oh. Yeah, we're dumb," he agreed. Laurie blushed with embarrassment, and Julian rolled his eyes.

"What?" Santo asked. "I don't get it."

"Right," Laurie managed, wishing she could sink right into her chair. "So more Emma clones. What do we call them?"

"They don't have names yet," Phoebe, Celeste, and Irma replied in unison.

Santo got a sly grin on his rocky face, then. "Hey, how about Esme and Sophie?"

"No!" Irma, Celeste, and Phoebe all said at the same moment, directing an arctic glare at the rock-bodied boy, who at least had the decency to look ashamed of his suggestion.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"I think they're going to pick their own names," Karen said. "Or Emma's going to name them. One or the other."

Nods all around. The subject was closed. All of them knew it. "Speaking of uncomfortable subjects," Laurie said, "I hear Professor Logan's going all out with P.E. this term."

"Nice segue," Julian said.

David nodded in agreement, the corners of his lips twitching but otherwise remaining admirably straight-faced. "It was classy. Just the right amount of 'I really don't want to talk about the new girls anymore.'"

Laurie mock-glared, but whatever she might have replied was cut off when Santo made a face and said, "I had Logan's P.E. class earlier today. He has it out for me. I know it. I was literally dying on my feet out there, and he just kept making me practice with that smirk..."

Karen looked Santo-wards in askance. "Do you know what 'literally' means?"

"Don't bother, Karen," David said, "I literally never hear anyone use that word correctly anymore." He let a beat pass. "One day, that sentence will no longer be a misuse of the word, but nobody will realize it."

* * *

><p>Asgard. The great feast-hall of the Odin-son. Thor's words yet hung in the air, Kara staring at him in complete shock even as Iron Man and Captain America shot Kara twin questioning looks.<p>

"What."

"You know Kara?" Iron Man asked, his tone carefully neutral.

Thor and Volstagg exchanged glances, and then looked to Kara once more. "Thou hast not told them?" Thor asked.

Worry began to bubble under her skin, not quite winning out over confusion but coming close. Kara wasn't sure what was going on here, but given her history, it wasn't likely to be good. "Told them what?"

Thor frowned, his gaze searching for something in her face. "Brunnhilde," he said.

A tall beautiful, muscular woman with long blonde hair rose from her place at the table several seats down. "My Lord Thor?" she replied.

"I, the Lady Kára, and my friends shall retire to my private chambers. I ask that you accompany us."

Brunnhilde bowed. "As you command, my Lord." She glanced towards Kara, Tony, and Steve. "Follow me," she said.

What else could she do? Kara followed.

The walk to Thor's private chambers didn't take long, but the undercurrent of worry and of wondering how and why Thor knew her made it feel much longer. No one spoke. After about three minutes of walking through the fantastic, earthy, warrior's home that was Thor's palace, Brunnhilde cast open the doors to a room which seemed gathered around a warm fire pit, rich wooden chairs and benches and couches all around it, a fire burning merrily within a circle of stones. Thor wasn't far behind: he entered perhaps a minute later, sat upon a particularly large and comfortable looking chair, and set Mjolnir down beside it. Only then did Brunnhilde seat herself. Kara took that as a signal, and sat as well.

"OK," Kara said. "How do you people know my name?"

Thor and Brunnhilde exchanged worried glances. "Sister," Thor said, "Hast thou forgotten the house of thy birth?" There was a note of concern in his voice that surprised her almost as much as the content of his question.

Kara stared. "The house of El?" she asked. "No. That's not something I could forget again."

Brunnhilde frowned. "You are not of the Levantine. Why do you claim descent from El? Your father is Odin, your mother, Frigg." A pause. "Shield-Sister... do you not remember?"

Kara's thoughts raced. Was this universe trying to incorporate her, the last survivor of a dead universe, the same way that New Earth had? Was this just a big misunderstanding? "... I don't think I'm who you think I am."

Steve spoke up, then. "Thor, Kara is a refugee from an alternate universe. Unless something stranger than normal is going on here, your sister may be this universe's version of her."

Thor gave Steve a speculative glance. "Indeed?" he asked, then turned his gaze to Kara once more.

Kara's thoughts raced. An alternate universe version of her? That was... that was better than the alternatives. She thought of her existence as Kara of Atlantis, and barely suppressed a shiver. "My name is Kara Zor-El," she said, and clasped Thor's arm.

Was it acceptance she saw in the eyes of the Odin-son? She wasn't sure. "Well met," he replied, clasping her arm in turn. "In thy home universe, thou art a goddess of the Levantine? It is a strange thought. Stranger still that thou hast no brother called Thor."

Kara shook her head. "I'm not a goddess at all, actually." She held up a finger in Iron Man's direction. "Don't start, Tony,"

"I wasn't going to," Tony protested.

"I can see your face through your helmet. You were totally about to." She returned her attention to Thor. "I'm... well, I'm a Kryptonian, actually."

"Kryptonian?" Thor asked. He seemed to recognize the name, but clearly wasn't satisfied with that. He glanced at Brunnhilde, who looked baffled.

"Lady Kára, alternate universe version or not, do not ask us to deny the evidence of our own eyes," Brunnhilde said. "A goddess is plainly what you are."

Thor nodded in agreement.

"So there's another version of Kara running around?" Steve asked.

Kara tried to shake off her discomfort. "I can't imagine what I'd do with another version of me," she said, and then smirked, "Two other versions if you count Karen." It occurred to her suddenly that she'd totally run into alternate versions of herself before, but it was too late to qualify the statement.

Tony stared off into space. "I can imagine at least a dozen things I'd do with three of you." He thought about it. "Hang on, add two more to that list. Although that last one... I'd have to find copies of Carol and Janet's costumes first."

"...Thanks, Tony," Kara said with a sigh.

"Any time."

Thor gave Iron Man a considering look. "Art thou her lover, Tony?" he asked.

"Working on it," Tony said.

It took a second for that question to register with Kara's consciousness. An image flashed into her imagination: the two of them in bed, herself on top of Tony, taking him inside her, riding him until the lesser of the two consequences of her orgasm was to shatter his hips beneath her, and then... she forced the image back with a gallon of brain-bleach and then, somehow, managed to combine a blush and a shudder. "Standing right here," Kara said, and her irritation, both with the question and with that disturbing mental image, was clear in her tone.

Steve gave Tony a disappointed look, and then said, "Thor, the reason we're here is because we've been to Kara's home universe before. You brought the Avengers there during the Krona incident."

Kara nodded. "I've got reason to believe my friends and loved ones are in great danger. If I can get there quickly enough, I should be able to stop it. Or at least minimize the damage."

"We were hoping you could open the way," Steve finished.

Thor didn't need to consider that for very long. He nodded almost immediately. "It is the least I can do for my sister from another world, and for my worthy friends." He rose to his feet, seizing Mjolnir as he did so. "Come. Bifröst awaits."

* * *

><p>"All right, people," Jamie said. "Time to put it all together. What do we have?"<p>

The offices of X-Factor Investigations were blissfully temperate. Outside, the sounds of the city were muted by the relative abandonment of Mutantville, but still drifted in on the cool breeze through the open window.

"Seems pretty straightforward so far," Rahne said. "We all saw the security footage. A man of average height, average weight, of average build, with average looks dressed in a business suit meets Divine at a bench in the Bleecker Street square, talks with her for a minute, gives her a business card, and then leaves. The next day, she's at the house in Stamford."

Rictor nodded. "I ran it by my police friend. Facial recognition software turned up nothing."

"I checked with SHIELD," Jamie said, "Apparently I'm still listed as an agent. Go figure. They ran the face through their database. Nothing."

M spoke next. "The business card was found and logged by the police at the scene, but disappeared from evidence the next day. I poked around in the heads of the officers who were on the scene. Their memories of the card had been erased. Good work. Probably a pro." She smirked. "But not up to my level."

"You got something from them?" Rahne asked.

"Nothing that would stand up in court," M replied, "But I got it."

A pause.

"Don't keep us all in suspense," Rahne said.

"One side of the card had the address of the house in Stamford. The other side had the corporate logo of a group called Imperial Industries."

Jamie nodded. "That confirms what Ms. Frost found. And it tracks."

The others, Monet excepted, looked at Jamie expectantly.

"Imperial Industries has been defunct for years. Nick Fury took them down. They were a front for HYDRA. Combine that with what we saw in that HYDRA base..."

Layla Miller walked into the office at that moment. "What's going on?" she asked.

Jamie glared at her and said nothing, but when Layla just waited expectantly, he sighed and said, "HYDRA sent Divine to Stamford."

Layla smiled brightly and held out her hand, and Jamie, Rictor, Banshee, and Monet each produced a twenty dollar bill and handed it over to Layla with identical sour expressions.

"An' that's why I don't gamble," Rahne said, trying not to laugh. "Especially not against little miss spooky." She and Layla spoke simultaneously, then: "She/I know(s) stuff."

Banshee frowned. "OK, the rest of us I can buy, but why did you get it wrong, M?"

M looked annoyed. "I don't want to talk about it."

Jamie shook his head, "What I can't figure is, why would they give a business card for a known and supposedly defunct HYDRA front? Why not just give it to her on an otherwise blank piece of paper? Hell, why give it to her at all? They had to have known that if their clean up was anything less than perfect, anyone who investigated it after the fact would figure this out."

"You think someone's trying to lead us to believe that HYDRA is responsible when they aren't?" Rictor asked. Beside him, Layla carefully counted her money before putting it in her pocket.

"Maybe. Then again, HYDRA's history isn't exactly clear of this sort of mistake. And at the very least it's worrying. Even more so combined with that huge stash of MGH that never showed up in the police report."

"Seemed pretty clear they had an interest in the girls at the base we found," Rictor said.

Jamie frowned. "That it did. Doesn't mean it's not a setup or a cover. Either way, we'd better let Scott know what we found."

"Can I come?"

Jamie raised an eyebrow at Layla. "I was planning on using a phone," he said.

Layla shook her head. "We need to go there. Karen's going to need our help."

Jamie paused, studying the young girl's features for a long moment. "You mean Divine?" he asked.

"From a certain point of view."

"You're way too young to be quoting Obi-Wan, kid."

Layla shrugged. "Can I come?"

Jamie sighed. "Fine. Let's go." He looked to the others. "Any of you want to come with?"

"Pass," Rictor, M, and Rahne each said in turn.

When Banshee didn't say anything, Jamie glanced her way. "Theresa?" he asked.

Banshee blinked, her gaze coming back to the here and now. "Sorry," she said. "I was still at 'Layla won the bet.'"

* * *

><p>Asgardia floated easily upon the winds above the dusty road in Caddo county, Oklahoma. The land was still brown - no hint yet of the vibrant, flower-speckled greens that would fill the land after the first rains. Those rains were coming: clouds were gathering on the horizon. The air felt heavy. The birdsong was a muted, distant thing, though not so distant to the ears of Kara Zor-L as she stood looking down upon the land from the overlook above Himinbjörg, the citadel of Heimdall, from whence Bifröst sprang.<p>

Kara turned away from the view, back to Steve and Tony. "This isn't goodbye," she said. "I'm not going home yet. Not permanently. I need to know what I'm walking into. This is recon. I won't ask you to come with me..."

"You don't need to," Steve said. "If you need our help, you have it."

Kara smiled. He really did remind her of Kal. "Thanks," she said, her voice thick with emotion. She looked to Thor. "Are we ready?"

Thor looked to Heimdall, who nodded reluctantly. "It would please me more if I were allowed another season to properly calibrate the new bridge, but it will serve," Heimdall said. "Be warned: there is no guarantee of where upon this other Midgard the bridge will take you. Without the proper calibrations, it may drop you into the sea of space, safely upon the land, or into the depths of the ocean."

Thor produced a small gem, then, and Kara took it. "When thou needst to return hither, hold this and speak; we will hear you." He turned to Heimdall. "Open the way."

Heimdall, clad all in red and orange with a furred cloak and a horned helm, the cosmos itself visible within his eyes, nodded in obedience. "My Lord Thor."

The world seemed to hold its breath in the moments before the opening of the way. The air grew heavier, seeming to take on weight upon weight. There was a rumble that began so low that even Kara couldn't quite hear it which slowly rose in pitch until it sounded of distant thunder. There was pulse of strange light, and then a great beam shining to the horizon; it seemed white at first, then split as if through a great prism into a vast path of burning iridescence that seemed to stretch out to the stars themselves.

Power Girl, Iron Man, and Captain America exchanged glances, and then...

Tony frowned. "PG, wait."

Kara raised an eyebrow, and Steve stopped short. "Why?" she asked.

"Give me the gem. Let me go through the portal first. I can scan the surroundings, make sure it's not going to drup us in the middle of deep space or something, then give the OK through the gem."

Kara glanced at Captain America, who, she noted, lacked any kind of protection from hostile environments, then back to Iron Man. "I'll go first. I can breathe in space."

Tony blinked. "... Seriously?"

She couldn't help it. It was hard not to tease Tony. "No," she deadpanned.

Tony looked annoyed at that. "Then let me go through and scan the other side before you risk yourselves."

Kara didn't quite frown. She recognized that look. He was trying to protect her, yes, and Steve as well, but the look he was giving her wasn't 'I'm a concerned teammate.' It was more like... right. Time to nip this in the bud. "I'm seeing someone," she said.

Tony looked even more annoyed than before. "That's not the point." He let a beat pass. "... How serious?" Another beat passed and he shook his head. "Not the point. The point is, I'm better suited for this. So to speak."

Kara winced at the bad pun, then looked to Steve, who held up his hands in a warding gesture, as if to say, "I'm staying out of this." She looked back at Tony and sighed. "Tony," Kara begain, "You're... tolerable. ... but there really isn't anything you can do that I can't. So just..."

"Wanna bet?" Tony asked, cutting her off.

Kara raised an eyebrow. "OK. I know I'll regret asking this, but what can you possibly do that I can't?"

Tony eyed Power Girl's chest and held up a finger. "A push-up."

Kara flushed with embarrassment, glancing momentarily down at her sizeable bust, then back at Tony, muttering, "You do ONE day of 'superheroes do boot camp for charity' and they never let you forget it."

Tony held up a second finger. "See if my shoes are untied."

Embarrassment tilted unpleasantly towards humiliation, and she glared at him. "I can hurt you, you know." Tony held up a third finger, but Kara cut him off before he could begin, "If the next words out of your mouth have anything to do with the ability to pee standing up, I'm punting you into orbit."

Tony grinned, shut his faceplate, took the gem from Kara, stepped onto the bridge, and was gone.

Power Girl and Captain America stood there for a moment, waiting. After a few seconds had passed, Steve looked sidelong at Power Girl. "... Can't you breathe in space?" he asked.

Power Girl smirked. "More or less," she said, stepped onto the bridge, and was gone.

Heimdall looked questioningly to Thor.

Thor shrugged as if to say, 'don't ask me, I'm just a god.'

* * *

><p>The rainbow bridge took her. Stars flew by at a speed that defied description. Then star clusters. Nebulae. Galactic arms, the Milky Way itself, and all around her shimmered Bifröst's iridescent glow. She left the Milky Way, and there beheld the Magellenic Clouds, Andromeda, and then galaxies whose name she did not know. They passed by, galaxies beyond number, billions upon billions upon billions, swarming like fireflies in the endless night. Bifröst plowed on, and she beheld the ripples it made in the surface of the timespace expansion wave itself before she shot clear into the Ginnungagap - the Yawning Void. Here, there was neither sound nor silence, darkness nor light. Here, in this place, containing nothing, nowhere, and nowhen, lay the potential for all things. Senses that were not sight nor hearing nor touch, not taste nor smell prickled at the edge of her awareness. There was something here. A lingering presence that defied the concepts of presence and absence themselves. She had passed beyond all darkness, beyond all light, beyond all substance, and it recognized her.

Something was here. Some not thing was...

_**Kara Zor-L**_

A horrible chill settled over her heart. The Void knew her name.

… and then it was gone. Bifröst bored through the Ginnungagap, and she flew with it towards the darkness and light of a new world.

It came in a flash. Light and heat and sound and color and she laughed, crying tears of joy as she emerged from the path of Bifröst onto the solid ground. Pavement beneath her feet. The sounds of a city. It was night. The stars shone brightly above, and the moon was waxing. People were staring. Muttering. "We can't stay here," one of them hissed, "The Amazons will be here any moment!" And there was Iron Man, giving her an annoyed look through his faceplate.

"Really?" he asked.

She tried to shake off her experience, but she shuddered, took a breath, and nodded. "Better let the Captain know that it's safe," she said.

Iron Man nodded, produced the gem, and spoke: "Captain, you can come through."

The crowd began to scatter. She saw a large fountain in the middle of the square, a sculpture of the greek god Anteros perched atop it.

"They're coming!" someone cried, and what was left of the crowd scattered.

* * *

><p>Every time she closed her eyes, Lois Lane saw the flood-waters roaring through the cathedral. She saw her photographer, Jimmy Olsen, washed away even as he reached out to help a man who had fallen. … was it selfish to dwell on one death amidst so many? All of Paris was destroyed in the blink of an eye. Who was Jimmy Olsen next to the hundreds of millions who had died when the tidal waves destroyed most of western Europe? But she hadn't known those people. The deaths of millions was too big. Too much. Jimmy's death was something that felt real. She hated them. The Atlanteans who had sent the wave. The Themyscirans who had compounded the problem by raising the British isles out of the sea to weather them.<p>

England was New Themyscira now. Ruled by the divine Queen Diana. They'd separated the men, put them into internment camps, but they wanted the women. Recruitment efforts were ongoing. She'd been infiltrating the recruitment center, reporting to Cyborg through Jimmy's device for the last thirty two weeks.

Now, she was running for her life with a woman named Penny Black while a crazy Amazonian archer and her flunkies tried to fill them both with arrows.

They'd been chased across the rooftops, down to the streets, through the alleys. Lois had trained with the Amazons as part of the preparation for her conversion, and her endurance was better now than it had ever been, but she wasn't one of them. The human body had limits, and hers were fast approaching.

Penny didn't cry out when Artemis' arrow pierced her shoulder. She kept running, and Lois as well. Picadilly Circus was somewhere ahead, and the crowd - all of them women - was dispersing even as they ran.

Lois Lane came out onto the square and ran almost face-first into the back of a tall, blonde teenaged Amazon in a white leotard with blue boots and a red cape. The Amazon didn't so much as budge from the impact. Lois went sprawling. Nearing total exhaustion, she scrambled back away from the girl, staring.

"I guess this is it," Penny said, blood dripping down from her arrow-pierced shoulder.

The Amazon stared at her. Blue eyes widened in recognition, and Lois's heart sank. Lois looked back at the approaching group of hunters, then at the tall, busty Amazon she'd collided with. She wouldn't beg. She rose unsteadily to her feet, determined that if she was going to die, she would meet it with her pride intact.

"Lois?" the Amazon asked. Something in her tone made Lois take a second look. Was this girl actually an Amazon? … She didn't have the anger that all the others seemed to. And the way she looked at her made Lois feel uncomfortable. The girl was looking at her like Lois was her mother.

"This ends now!" Artemis cried, and loosed another arrow.

There was a rush of wind, and the sound of wood snapping. The girl in white, blue and red was behind her. Between her and the hunters. It was only then that she realized that the girl wasn't alone: a figure in high tech red and gold armor was helping Penny to her feet even as... even as a man dressed like an American flag was holding out his hand to her.

Lois Lane looked up into the clearest, bluest eyes she had ever seen. "Who are you supposed to be?" she asked.

The star-spangled man replied in a voice filled with utter, perfect conviction: "I'm Captain America. Don't worry, miss. You're safe, now."

She took his hand, and despite herself, for all that there was still a group of Amazons out for her blood not a hundred feet behind, she believed him.

Another arrow whistled through the air. Another sudden snap of wood. Lois turned. The girl who knew her name let the remains of the second arrow fall to the ground.

"Artemis, stop." the girl said. Her voice was a commanding alto, and held a strength and authority that was hard to define. Her cape moved with the breeze, and Captain America and the armored figure moved to stand at her side.

Artemis' eyes narrowed, but she and her hunters drew up short. "Who are you to address me in such a familiar way?"

"It's me, Power Girl," the girl replied. "You probably don't remember me, but I'm a friend." She met the Amazon's eyes, and there was an earnestness in her expression that seemed familiar to Lois, somehow. "I know it won't make sense, but please, listen to me. Stand down. I'm your friend, and so is Lois. You know her, and you know me. We shouldn't be fighting each other."

Artemis studied Power Girl for a long moment, clearly not recognizing her. Her face contorted into a snarl and she started to speak, but whatever she might have said was cut off. There was the strangest sense of something clicking into place, not just for Artemis, but for the whole world. Artemis' eyes widened, and now she stared at Power Girl in complete astonishment. "You're Kara," she whispered.

Power Girl nodded, smiling hopefully. "Yes." Lois felt hope stir within her. Maybe, just maybe, they'd get out of this without more violence.

"... how did I forget?" Artemis asked wonderingly. Then her expression turned harsh, and her voice filled with venom. "It was foolish of you to have come here, Kara of Atlantis."

"... shit..." Power Girl muttered. Captain America and the armored figure exchanged glances, though what that meant, Lois didn't know.

Artemis drew her sword, and it gleamed in the moonlight, radiating a soft aura of magical power. "Your grandfather's magics will not save you here, Atlantean witch. Surrender, and Queen Diana may grant you the mercy of a swift, painless death."

Power Girl, Kara of Atlantis, or whoever the hell she was, looked to her companions, then. "Try not to hurt them too badly," she said sadly.

Penny was edging away from the battle, but there were more Amazons coming. Dozens. The armed forces of New Themyscira were converging on the disturbance, and however powerful this Kara of Atlantis and her friends might be, they weren't going to defeat an army by themselves. Lois almost shocked herself with her own reaction: despite the fatigue that made any movement all but impossible, she moved up behind Power Girl and her group, dropped into a combat stance, and covered their flank.

Artemis lunged, sword point first, crossing the distance between between herself and Power Girl in the blink of an eye, driving her blade through Power Girl's heart. … through her after-image's heart. There was a crack as Power Girl broke the sound barrier evading the thrust. Three other Amazons hurled their spears, but Captain America was already charging, shield held in front of him. Two spears bounced off that shield with the sound of magically enhanced steel on vibranium alloy. Lois took up a fallen spear just in time to bring it into place to deflect another thrown spear, and the impact of a spear thrown with ten times the strength of a mortal woman nearly sent her sprawling. Lois had trained with the Amazons for thirty two weeks, and she was faster and stronger than she had ever been, but she was mortal: they were not.

The armored figure fired something - beams of light? Force? - from his palms, and an Amazon went down. Lois steadied herself as another spear came flying, this one aimed at Captain America's back even as he slammed his shield into an Amazon. Lois didn't try to block it this time, just to deflect it. It slid off the edge of her spear and hit the ground a few inches short of the Captain's left foot.

Artemis pivoted and slashed her blade through the air where Kara's head had been miliseconds before, and there was another loud crack. Lois lost track of the rest of the battle after that: the first Amazon in the group of reinforcements charged her, and she lived only because the warrior-woman underestimated her. Sometimes, that was enough. The Amazon's spear blade scored across Lois' thigh, cutting deep, blood flowing out as agony lanced through her, but she held her own spear steady and let the other woman's momentum do the rest, piercing through her armor, ribcage, organs, spine, and through the armor again. The amazon sank slowly down to the ground, her eyes wide with shock as the life faded from them.

There was a loud noise and a wave of pressure knocked Lois from her feet. The sound of steel shattering. Artemis' enraged scream.

Lois tried to get up, but she couldn't seem to get her leg under her. It didn't hurt, it was just... there was blood, and it was slippery, and it wouldn't... She couldn't see Penny anywhere.

A woman with auburn hair and orange skin descended from above, shining like a star.

"We need to go!" Power Girl yelled.

"Yeah, I'm getting that impression!" the armored figure replied in a man's voice. "You absolutely sure we can't hurt them?"

"These are good people, Iron Man, I'm NOT going to kill them!"

Lois collapsed to the ground. She could feel her pulse in her leg. She tried to keep pressure on it.

"Use the gem!" Captain America yelled. "Get us out of here!"

They were surrounded, now, above as well as on all sides. Artemis, her sword shattered, took up her bow and arrow once more with a grim look. "Surrender, Kara of Atlantis. It's over."

Iron Man produced the gem and spoke: "Thor, get us out of here."

Artemis actually looked offended at that. "The false thunder-god cannot help you..." she began. Then the world itself seemed to tremble, and she looked about, her eyes wide.

"Surrender," the floating woman said, "Or die."

"Come ON, Thor," Iron Man said again, "Four to beam up!"

A thrown spear took the gem from Iron Man's hands. Kara caught it before it could fly far. The floating woman opened her hand, and a fiery light gathered upon it. Kara looked up. "... Koriand'r," she whispered in pained recognition.

Lois Lane's world dissolved in iridescent glory.

* * *

><p>Earth 616<p>

The Xavier Institute for Higher Learning

Salem Center, NY

Touch. Fingertips and heat. The swell of Irma's breasts beneath clothing that failed to hide anything from the eyes of a Kryptonian. The taste of her lips. It was everything Karen had imagined, and now, just after the Atlantean delegation's visit and the first time alone they'd managed to have in days, she and Irma were determined to make the best of... Karen broke off their kiss off in mid-sentence at the unexpected vibration near her hip, accompanied by a faint buzzing sound. She looked down. "... and my pants are vibrating. How is that a thing?"

Irma's breath had quickened, and both of their clothes were mussed, but they hadn't had time to move any further. Despite her irritation at the interruption, Irma laughed. "Do you really want me to answer that question?" she asked.

Karen looked confused for a moment. … and then she got the joke, and blushed. "Oh."

"It's your phone, Karen," Irma said. "The one Kara left for you?"

"Oh," Karen said. A beat passed. "Oh!" She stood up, straightened her clothes, and then opened the phone. She fumbled with the interface for a few seconds before she could figure out how to bring up Kara Zor-L's text message:

PG: Nightwing, I need you and anyone who's willing to come with you to come to Asgard ASAP. If the Xavier people won't take you, I can have a quinjet sent out. … it's bad. Flashpoint bad. Come quickly.

Karen stared down at the screen, her eyes wide. She wasn't sure what she was feeling. Fear was part of it. Flashpoint. Did that mean it was too late to save all the people Kara knew in the other world? Did that mean it was too late to save... she blinked. To save who? It wasn't like she knew anyone over there, so why was she... to save Max. A shudder passed through her. Someone knocked at the door, but neither she nor Irma were paying it any amount of attention.

"What?" Irma asked. She could have read Karen's mind, but she didn't. "What's wrong?"

The door opened, and Noriko poked her head inside for a moment, checking to see that they were decent before she walked in.

Karen handed Irma the phone, and Irma read the message. "Oh," she said worriedly.

Karen nodded faintly. "Oh."

"Oh?" Noriko asked.

Irma and Karen each gave Noriko a flat look.

"Oh," Noriko said, and held up her hands in a warding gesture, as if to say, 'sorry, none of my business,' before she grabbed a handful of her things from her dresser and walked back out.

Karen let out a breath. "I owe her, Irma. I'm not going to sit around here when she needs my help."

Irma nodded, and met Karen's eyes. "So let's go help her."

END CHAPTER 06

Next: The Day Before

Author's notes:

It's probably obvious, but the scene at the end of this chapter actually takes place before much of what happens in the next chapter. It didn't feel right to go straight from Kara's escape from the world of Flashpoint to Karen attending the Atlantean state visit.


	20. DU: The Day Before

_(… we came in?)_

_Oranges and lemons, say the bells of Saint Clements._

Karen wasn't sure what brought the old nursery rhyme to mind, but it had been stuck in her head for most of the day. It was early afternoon at the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, and it was a recess period at the moment - the bell would ring in another ten minutes, and Karen was in her room, brooding. It was a late-September day, and fair - warm but not hot - and tonight was the night of the Atlantean state visit. Tonight, Namor, Namorita, and assorted Atlantean dignitaries would be coming for an official state dinner, and she was to be a part of it. … which wouldn't be anywhere near as awkward if she didn't remember murdering all of Namorita's friends and damn near killing her as well. Karen couldn't quite repress a shudder, and tried to think thoughts more Xanderish than Divine-like.

Consequences. Every act had consequences. Every thought. Every whispered word, everything spoken out loud, every action, every inaction. Briefly, sullenly, Karen wondered if the consequences of just not showing up would be worth the relief of not having to be there for the dinner. There was still school today, too, and there was another thing she was considering blowing off. It'd probably annoy the teachers, which had never bothered her when she was Xander, but still...

She was still mulling the thought over when the door opened, and a voice very like Irma's asked, "You're Nightwing, right?"

Karen looked up. One of the new Cuckoos was at her door. "Er... hi."

"Hello," the clone replied, not seeming to realize exactly how awkward this was, which was impossible because Karen knew for a fact the other girl was a telepath just like her sisters.

"Can I help you with something?" Karen asked.

The clone nodded. "You saved us. My sister and me. I wanted to know why."

"What do you mean?"

"I know what you feel for the Phoenix-host. You had her safety. Why did you and your sister take the risk to save us?"

"It was the right thing to do."

"Was it?"

Karen raised an eyebrow, and the clone went on, "You preserved the existence of two parts of a dangerous weapon system intended to destroy mutantkind. Was that really the right thing to do?"

Karen couldn't quite meet the other girl's eyes. "... it's not your fault what you were made for," she said. She was thinking of Divine. How she remembered **being** Divine. Memories that seemed just as real as her memories of Xander Harris, though much briefer. Divine's only real memories were for the few months she had lived before... everything. Before that, there were the implanted ones, the false childhood she had known even at the time wasn't real, memories given to her simply to allow her to function in human society if it became necessary, but those ones didn't have the substance of the real ones. Those ones were fading.

The girl frowned. "It's not the same, is it?" A beat passed. "I can see it in your mind. Divine was made to help Maxwell Lord prevent a war between humans and metahumans. Even misguided as he was, his purpose was good. And prior to your merging with her, you had been influenced by Kara Zor-L, both by knowing her and by existing within her body. Sublime created me to render mutantkind extinct, and the Phoenix passed judgment, but you saved us anyways."

"Maybe I don't think the Phoenix has the right to decide who lives and who dies."

The clone's frown deepened. "She is the avatar of Life itself. Who has that right if not she?" She paused. "... You believe that no one has that right?"

Uncertainty colored her emotions for several seconds, and then Karen met the clone's gaze. "Do you want to be Sublime's weapon?" she asked.

"What does that have to do with anything?" the clone asked.

"Do you want to be his weapon?"

This time it was the clone who looked away. "... No."

"That's why we saved you."

"To give us the choice?"

Karen nodded. "To give you the choice."

"... what if we chose to be his weapon?"

"Then we'd stop you."

The clone frowned. "But if you failed, you would be responsible for the death of the mutant species."

Karen swallowed. "Yeah," she said.

"To give us a choice," the clone murmured. A pause. "... mother wants us to choose names for ourselves."

Karen raised an eyebrow.

"You chose Nightwing for yourself?"

Karen smiled faintly. "Yeah, I guess that's the code name we're going with."

"How'd you pick it?"

Karen thought about blowing the girl off. Just shutting the door and getting back to her building case of dread of whatever outfits Janet was going to be bringing for her to choose from. No. She wouldn't do that. "Kara picked it. Nightwing and Flamebird are a pair of Kryptonian gods, but they're, uh, also kind of traditional Kryptonian mantles taken up by various superheroes."

The clone nodded, finding more in Karen's thoughts to explain it. By this point, Karen was kind of getting used to people picking things out from her thoughts that she never said aloud. "I see, yes. But the fact that it has been used as a superhero's name before is not why she chose it, is it? The gods called Nightwing and Flamebird were lovers. Mates. Equal and opposite. She chose it for you when Irma, Celeste and Phoebe manifested as the Phoenix?"

Karen looked uncomfortable at that, but nodded. "Yeah." A pause. "… So you're trying to pick a name for yourself?" she asked.

The clone nodded. "Mom said I needed to be sure about the name I picked, but all of them seem like just... words."

Karen smiled faintly. "Well, just as long as you don't go with 'Buffy...'"

The clone blinked and looked thoughtful at that. "Buffy," she said, as if tasting the word.

"No," Karen said. "Hell no."

"I kind of like the sound of it."

"Your mom would murder me."

The clone looked visibly disappointed. Then she thought for a moment and asked, "What about Joan?"

Karen shook her head. "I'm not the one who has to live with it."

The clone nodded. "I feel like a Joan."

Karen smiled. "Joan it is."

* * *

><p>Destination Unknown<br>by P.H. Wise  
>An X-Men Crossover Fanfic<p>

Chapter 7: The Day Before

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is owned by Fran and Kaz Kuzui.

* * *

><p>"Suppose a trolley is running out of control down a track," Ms. Pryde said. "In its path are five people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. You've managed to make it to a control panel and if you flip a switch, the trolley will be diverted onto a different track. Unfortunately, there's a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch or do nothing?"<p>

Ethics class, taught by Kitty Pryde. It was later in the day, now. This was Karen's last class. Normally, Emma was the teacher here, but considering what had happened in England, Karen wasn't surprised to see that she wasn't here.

A boy raised his hand, and Kitty called on him. "Yes, Mr. Borkowski?"

"Some of us are way faster than a trolley. Why not divert it onto the track with just one person and then use our mutant abilities to get out in front and rescue them before it can hit them?"

"Yeah," Santo said, nodding his head in agreement, "Or I could just stop the trolley before it gets anywhere near them!"

Kitty smiled thinly. "Let's assume that everyone's got power-suppression collars on. Mad philosopher and all that."

"How did we get them on?" Anole - Victor Borkowski - asked.

"You were captured in an attack on the mansion and it was on you when you woke up."

Victor frowned, but he nodded.

"So," Kitty said, "What do you do?"

Celeste raised her hand, and when Kitty called on her, she said, "You divert the trolley."

"Why?"

"Because the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."

Kitty looked out across the rest of the class. "Does everyone agree with that?"

Karen sank into her chair. Ethics. Funny how she'd thought this sort of thing was a complete waste of time back in Sunnydale. Now, though... she shook her head. There was actually a debate going, now. David was arguing against changing the track, and the class itself seemed split. She'd be more interested in it if she didn't have that gnawing sense of impending doom about meeting Namorita at the dinner.

_You owe me five farthings, say the bells of St. Martin's._

"... but you can't just DO that! You can't just decide who lives and who dies. You should be trying to save all of them! And if you push the button, you're becoming part of the problem, not part of the solution..."

"It doesn't matter," Celeste said. "It might not be your fault that the situation is what it is, but if you're in a position where you can change the outcome, isn't not taking action the same as killing the five people on the other track?"

"You can't control the behavior of villains," David said. "You can control how you respond to it. I would refuse to play their sick game."

"And you'd have as good as killed five people when you could have reduced that loss to just one."

"It's not the same thing, and you can't just reduce the value of human lives to numbers. It's not five people dead or one person dead..."

Karen looked up at the clock just in time for the bell to ring, cutting off David in mid sentence.

"For homework," Kitty said, "I want all of you to write your own response to this scenario, and explain why you would do what you do. Class dismissed." The students were already gathering their things to go when she started speaking, and the first was on his way out by the time she finished.

Karen stood up, and Irma was at her side a moment later. "You OK?" the Cuckoo asked.

Karen nodded. "Yeah. I'm just..." she looked at Irma. "I guess I'm just..." she trailed off.

"Terrified out of your mind?" Irma asked with a wry smile.

Karen held up her thumb and forefinger. "Little bit." Then she thought, knowing Irma would hear her, '_How exactly do you say you're sorry for killing someone's friends and putting her in the hospital?'_

Irma could have said that Karen wasn't responsible for Divine's actions. That it wasn't her who did them. But in a sense, it had been. Divine hadn't been destroyed: the two had merged. The vast majority of the result was Karen, but Divine was in there, too. So Irma shook her head, and her eyes looked distant. "I don't know," she said.

Nothing more was said. Karen offered her arm, Irma took it, and they left class together.

They walked for a few minutes like that, the whole student body moving around them and the two of them together, arm in arm. The first stop was Karen's room. She dropped off her backpack, and then they moved on to the room that Irma shared with her sisters, where Irma dropped off hers. On the way back down, Karen finally spoke. "... so they shot down my whole, 'let two stupidly powerful mutants under house arrest leave home to go on a date' plan," she said.

Irma rolled her eyes. "Two things. First, you're not a mutant. Second, you didn't expect differently, did you?"

Karen made a show of thinking about it, then once more held up her thumb and forefinger with about an inch between them. "Maybe a little bit," she said, waited a beat, and then finished, "OK, no. But since we've got this state visit by Atlantis thing..."

Irma raised an eyebrow. "State visit by Atlantis thing?"

"I stand by my mangling of the English language," Karen said.

"Right," Irma said. "State visit by Atlantis thing?" Her tone was different this time around.

"Uh, yeah. I was kind of hoping you'd maybe be my date?"

"And delivered with such panache," Irma said. Karen blushed, and Irma took pity. "Of course I will," she said.

Karen's grin seemed to brighten the whole hallway, her fear and her anxiety momentarily forgotten. And without the anxiety, without the fear, she looked at Irma and felt that quivering teenaged nervous expectation, warmth, happiness. Karen hesitated for a second, and then leaned in and kissed the telepathic girl. Irma leaned into it in turn, and Karen's body grew warm with other feelings: with the need to feel Irma's skin under her hands, to feel the other girl pressed against her. She wanted to tell her, to say something that would let Irma know how she felt, what she wanted. The kiss grew more heated, and to her pleasant surprise, Irma's hands slid gently under Karen's blouse, and those hands were very warm...

"Oh," said a girl's voice.

Karen flushed, and Irma did, too. They separated, and Karen glanced towards the person who had found them. Laurie Collins was trying very hard not to stare.

"Sorry," the Laurie said, "I'll just... walk somewhere else."

The moment was over. Karen shook her head, "No, I have to go anyways. Janet's going to be here with those outfits any minute now, and I have to be there when she arrives." She met Irma's gaze. "See you tonight?"

Irma was still blushing, but her tone was far more composed. "Tonight," she replied.

* * *

><p>Valerie Cooper frowned thoughtfully. "Why would HYDRA send a random metahuman to a halfway house for escaped powered criminals in Stamford?"<p>

Jamie shrugged. "A random absurdly powerful metahuman, you mean?" He tossed a bottle of pills in a sealed plastic bag onto the table. They were in Valerie Cooper's office, he and Cooper and Summers. He'd arrived twenty minutes earlier, and Layla was waiting outside the door. Well, she probably was, anyways.

"What's this?" Val asked. She picked up the bag and examined the bottle within. "Mutant growth hormone?"

"The whole thing stank," Jamie said. "I figured something was going down. Turns out, an unknown benefactor's spent a lot of money to provide at least one of the metahuman criminals in that house with a hell of a lot of MGH. Anyone want to take a guess on the suspiciously obvious identity of the group supplying the power boost?"

Valerie grimaced. HYDRA's logo was on the damn bottle.

"OK," Scott said, "So besides sending an unstable and incredibly powerful metahuman to the house, HYDRA was also supplying the inhabitants with MGH. Or someone who would really like us to believe that it's HYDRA. Is that what you're saying?"

Jamie smirked. "Well, yeah, except the way I was going to say it sounded a hell of a lot cooler."

Scott ignored his attitude, and Jamie almost - almost - felt small and petty for having showed it. Scott went on, "A house that the New Warriors just happened to target in the filming of their reality show, resulting in their deaths being broadcast on national television, and, between those deaths and what happened when SHIELD tried to take the girl down, ultimately causing a national panic."

Jamie nodded. "A location leaked to the New Warriors by..." he let the words hang in the air.

Val frowned. "That's a lot of pies to have their fingers in."

Jamie shrugged. "HYDRA's got a lot of fingers."

"I don't see an endgame here," Val said. "Sure, they can create a lot of chaos, stoke national fears over metahumans in general, and Divine's association with Power Girl might direct that more specifically towards anti-mutant backlash. They might have caused a diplomatic incident with Atlantis if Namorita had died, but they couldn't have known exactly how it would all go down. So what's the point of all this?"

"Has HYDRA ever needed an excuse to execute an unnecessarily complicated and elaborate plan without an obvious endgame?" Jamie asked.

"Fair point," Val said, "But even so, they've got to be after something, even if it's not immediately obvious."

Scott looked thoughtful. "They wanted an incident. That much is clear. You don't keep a group of super powered criminals supplied with MGH unless you want an incident. So they tipped off the New Warriors. The New Warriors went in and found their enemies vastly more powerful than they'd expected. Everyone except Namorita is killed..."

"Pretty sure we went over this territory a couple sentences back," Jamie said, perhaps uncharitably.

Scott shot Jamie an annoyed look. "I'm thinking out loud."

"Think a little more quietly, then."

Scott looked even more annoyed at that, and started to say something in an angry tone.

"Gentlemen," Valerie said, cutting him off. Both Scott and Jamie had decency enough to look embarrassed. "All right," she went on. "We've got dots that don't quite connect, but the picture they form is suggestive nonetheless." She looked to Jamie. "Do we have any reason to believe that whoever this is, HYDRA or not, will continue in their efforts to influence Karen?"

Jamie's expression soured. "The base we snuck into? There were pictures all over the wall. Every sighting that's ever been photographed of the Zor-L sisters." He produced an envelope and set it on the table. "My dupe took some photos. That's the last bit of information we've got."

Scott took a breath. "OK. Thanks for your assistance, Madrox."

"I'd say it was a pleasure," Jamie replied, "But, you know."

Scott nodded. "I know."

Val sighed. "Hell of a thing to drop on my last week in charge of this place."

"Last week?" Jamie asked.

Val nodded. "We had one too many incidents here. One too many times having the entire Sentinel Force disabled while an enemy of the X-Men attacked the school. One too many times students ignoring the rules set for them. One too many times Divine, Karen, whoever she is, ignoring her house arrest and flying off to do as she pleased. I don't blame any of the students, but my superiors think things have gotten out of control. I'm being replaced."

Scott looked down. "... Do we know who's being put in charge?"

"Yeah. We do."

* * *

><p>It wasn't so bad. Well, OK, the part of her that still remembered being Xander Harris was hyperventilating at the affront to his masculinity that all of this represented, but besides that, it wasn't so bad.<p>

"Well, what do you think?" Janet asked.

Three outfits were arranged on full size mannequins that matched Karen's measurements precisely, and just looking at them made her blush a little. "They're very... um..." Oh, and that stupid song was still stuck in her head. So there was that, too. _When will you pay me? say the bells of Old I grow rich, and all that jazz. I'm gonna rouge my knees and roll my stockings... say the bells of... damn it. _OK. So maybe using Chicago to drive out Oranges and Lemons wasn't going to work. Karen turned her attention back to the outfits.

The first was a little black dress. The skirt was pleated, and came down to just below the knees. The bodice and the straps were textured with subtle floral patterns, with a v of smooth fabric starting at the bustline and going down to the naval. It was sleeveless and simple, and to this Janet had added a pearl bracelet and earrings. Karen's fingers went to her unpierced ears, not quite shuddering.

The second outfit was a long, satin and silk gown that seemed silver at first glance, but when the light hit it, revealed subtle shades of rose and gold amidst the silver. A slit went up one leg, and strategic portions of the gown were semi-transparent. Earrings matched the gown, as did a pair of heels.

When she looked at the last outfit, Karen almost sighed in relief. It was a suit. Sort of. It was hard to put a finger on what bugged her about it. Maybe just the fact that it was so obviously fitted for a woman's body - and not just any woman's, but her own. Not quite a tuxedo jacket. Similar, but the way it emphasized the mannequin's figure seemed... strange, and it had a subtle textured pattern to it that she couldn't identify. A white dress shirt. French cuffs, cufflinks, shirt studs. A dark maroon vest. No tie. Black silk stockings. Black trousers with a silk braid covering the outer seams. The shoes that went with it were black leather pumps.

Janet waited. On the mannequins, the suit looked very good, but the gown and the dress looked absolutely amazing. "I, um..." Karen started to say, then trailed off. Janet raised an eyebrow, but if she was otherwise put off by Karen's decidedly nontraditional reaction to having a professional designer present her with three formal outfits, she showed no sign.

Unbidden, an image came into her thoughts: herself in the dress side by side with herself in the gown, her walking into a formal ballroom exactly like the one from Batman Returns, where Bruce and Selina discovered each other's identities. The crowd was full of students from the Xavier Institute, and everyone was looking at her. Staring at her. … desiring her. Her body on display to **be** desired. Even the suit did that to an extent, but this was, this was... She felt her body shifting. Changing. All at once, she was Xander Harris wearing that gown, the earrings, the high heels. Xander Harris wearing the little black dress, the pearls, the pumps. The crowd was suddenly half Xavier students, half students from Sunnydale High. Larry stood in the front row in full pirate regalia, pointed a finger, and began to laugh. Then everyone in the room was laughing. Laughing and pointing, and shame was burning in her. She tried to explain, tried to tell them that she'd been transformed into a woman, and that if she didn't accept that, she'd go nuts. Nobody listened. They all just stood there, pointing and laughing at Alexander Lavelle Harris in women's clothing.

Someone said something. Karen blinked. "What?"

She was in her room, with Janet. There was no crowd. Nobody was pointing, nobody was laughing.

Janet frowned. "I said, are you all right?"

Karen wasn't fine, but she nodded and said that she was.

"All three are yours, Emma paid up front, but which one would you like to wear tonight?" Janet asked.

"The suit," Karen replied, and her voice sounded distant even to her.

That wasn't the end of it, of course. Putting on the clothes was only step one. Karen wasn't particularly interested in performing the next steps, but Emma had already arranged everything for each of the students that would actually be dining with Atlantean royalty. No sooner had Janet Van Dyne departed when a well dressed African-American twenty something man with a leather briefcase stepped into the room. "Karen, right?" he asked. His voice was a rumbling bass, resonant and strong.

Karen nodded, looking at him in askance. "Yeah. Can I, uh, help you?"

"Weren't you told? I'm here to do your makeup." He gestured to his briefcase.

"... makeup?"

The man raised an eyebrow. "Apparently not," he said. "I'm Robert. Robert Jenkins. Call me Bob." He offered his hand, and after a moment's hesitation, she shook it. "I work for Ms. Van Dyne."

"Right," Karen said. "Why are you here, though?"

"To do your makeup," Bob replied, probably avoiding the 'you're an idiot' tone only through sheer force of will. A beat passed. "Oh, I get it. You prefer the natural look?"

"I prefer to leave my face the way it is," Karen replied. "It's a perfectly good face. Very face-shaped."

Bob nodded. "Most faces are. And it is as broad as it hath breadth; it is just as high as it is, and moves with its own organs. It lives by that which nourisheth it, and the elements once out of it, it transmigrates."

Karen blinked. "What?"

Bob frowned. "Oh. I thought we were referencing Shakespeare. My bad."

Karen tried not to feel like a moron. She was mostly unsuccessful. She sighed. "Right. Look, I don't want any makeup, so why don't you just move on to the next person?"

If Bob was annoyed, he showed no sign of it. Instead, he shrugged. "Sure. I'm hardly going to force you to let me put makeup on you." He nodded to her, turned on his heel, and left.

Karen let out a sigh and sank down onto her bed; she felt a little bad for doing that to Bob. He was just doing his job. It was just that his job involved her wearing makeup. She'd done that before, once. When she'd been redirected to the wrong version of this world - a version where the world she had known existed side-by-side with this one. … and apparently a world where Xander Harris was dating basically all of the female Young Avengers. Concurrently. And they were all somehow fine with this. … yeah, she wasn't sure how that worked, either. The girls had basically ignored her protests and had her made up, taking an unholy joy in 'prettying up girl-Xander,' but just because it had happened once before didn't mean she wanted to do it again.

… OK, if she was going to be honest, it hadn't been that bad. It'd been embarrassing, but the girl she'd seen in the mirror had gone from the 'very attractive' that she normally was to beyond gorgeous, and she'd felt this sense of fierce pride at that, it was just that, well, despite everything she'd been through, she wasn't quite comfortable seeing that girl as 'her.' OK, that wasn't true. Maybe there wasn't a rational reason. Or maybe it was just 'his' lingering experience of having grown up male, and having thought of herself as male. But it was something merging with Divine hadn't helped; Divine's memories hadn't included experience with cosmetics, gowns, or heels.

Twenty minutes passed as she basically sulked in her room, though by the end of it the self-pity had faded into bemusement. Then someone knocked, and a moment later, the door opened again, and in came the etiquette coach.

Only after that was done with was Karen finally free to go out to where the dozen or so students who were attending the dinner were waiting to be let into the house's parlour. Irma was already there when Karen arrived, and so were Noriko, Julian, and Laurie, a few students who only looked vaguely familiar, and both of the new Cuckoos. Karen's mouth went dry at the sight of Irma. Irma in her fiery red dress, with her diamond earrings and bracelet, her hair in an updo that Karen didn't recognize. Their eyes met.

"Good evening, Karen," Irma said. "You look good."

"You look..." Karen trailed off, words momentarily evading her. "Wow." Her cheeks flushed. "I mean good." A beat passed, and her blush deepened. "I mean beautiful."

Irma smiled. "I know what you mean." The doors opened, and together they walked into the parlour.

The Atlantean delegation was already there. Their eyes fell upon her instantly: she and Irma were the first two students through the door, and Karen almost stopped short under the weight of those gazes. Only one was openly suspicious. Only one actually flinched upon seeing her: A girl about her own age, maybe a little older, and strangely lovely, with blue skinned with platinum blonde hair and startlingly blue eyes, a wooden cane resting next to her.

* * *

><p>Karen burst free from the wreckage of the fallen house. "You stupid bastards," she said. "You're all gonna die here."<p>

A fat boy in a green and white costume ran for it, his eyes wide in panic. She felt a flicker of contempt as she picked up a fallen brick and threw it at the back of his head with godlike force. There was a sick crack, and the boy collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Another boy in a blue costume with blonde hair zoomed forward, balls of colored light all but swarming around him. He hit her in the face, and the force of the impact blasted her backwards, though her feet didn't leave the ground. It stung, but only barely. "Immune to kinetic impact, huh? Let's see how you do against heat." Her vision shifted. Red overwhelmed everything, and what she looked at died. She was the boy burn in perfect clarity, reduced from a living human to bits of ash in less than a second, but her Kryptonian eyes saw it all as if it had taken minutes.

"You bitch!" Namorita screamed. "You killed them! You evil bitch!"

"Are you going to run away like your friend?" Karen asked casually.

Namorita readied herself. She moved, lunging forward, swinging for Karen's face.

Karen didn't feel like taking another hit to the face. She sidestepped Namorita's attack and then punched her in the chest. The girl flew backwards through the fence, across the street, and into the side of a school bus. The sound of shrieking metal filled the air, and...

* * *

><p>Namorita Prentiss. That was girl's name. A sense of sick horror rose up in Karen's chest. That memory felt like it had happened yesterday. Irma squeezed her hand.<p>

All but two had the same blue skin as the girl. Most were dressed all in white, though Namorita wore white and orange, and the Caucasoid woman dressed formally in white, but Namor himself wore black and gold, a more formal version of his chest-baring costume with a crown resting lightly upon his brow.

"Hello, Divine," Namor said, his voice strong and resonant.

The students behind Karen and Irma stopped short, as if sensing something were amiss.

Karen shook her head. "I'm not her."

"We shall see. But come, join us, partake of the refreshments Xavier's school has offered."

Karen gulped, tried not to look around nervously, and walked forward to stand before the king of Atlantis.

"I thought Ms. Frost explained," Karen began.

"I have known Emma for many years, child," Namor said. "I want **you** to explain. Not the cheerful fantasy that was given to SHIELD and the Avengers. The truth." He gestured to an empty seat nearby. "Sit."

Karen sat. She glanced at the other students in the room, then back to Namor.

"They will not hear our conversation," Namor said.

'_He's right.' _It was Irma's telepathic voice. '_I'm standing ten feet away, and everything you both say sounds like background noise.'_

The teachers were walking in now. First Scott then Logan and Kitty and Pietr, Ororo and Hank. Without saying a word, Scott and Logan positioned themselves near Namor, with Kitty, Pietr, and Ororo spreading out throughout the room to supervise students. No Emma.

Karen looked at the floor. She could hear her own heart pounding in her ears. Granted, she could always hear that, plus the heartbeats of everyone nearby, but it was louder than normal. She looked up at Namor, grew momentarily distracted by his internal organs, and then focused on his exterior. On his eyes. She could still see the x-ray view, but she also saw everything else, and it was everything else that she chose to attend to. … at least that song wasn't stuck in her head any... oh, right, there it was again. All it had taken was thinking about it again. It occurred to her that she was delaying. Distracting herself. The only ones who knew her full story were the teachers and her team. The thought of explaining everything to the king of Atlantis didn't appeal to her, but if she had to do it, well... "My name is Karen Zor-L," she said. "And the reason my sister was introduced as Karen Zor-L is that I used to share a body with her, and when we met, I was in charge."

Namor raised an eyebrow, and the shape of his eyebrow combined with the ease with which he made the gesture reminded Karen of nothing so much as Spock. She didn't mention that outloud. "Perhaps you should start at the beginning," Namor said.

She did. It was difficult at first. It felt like she was confessing her sins, but the story came out, piece by piece, starting with his first meeting with Buffy Summers, how they came to help her as the Slayer, then moving on to Halloween, the costume he wore, and **her** waking up in the sky above New York. She told Namor about her time with the Fantastic Four, of the test, of her running away, the fight with the man made out of sand, being sent to Xavier's. She told him about Kara's manifestation, of the discovery that she wasn't in his transformed body: she was in Kara's body. On and on. The discovery of the way back, Doctor Strange's assistance, the damaged draconian katra, the portal opening, and her breaking the circle when Irma called for help. The battle with Divine, the Sentry, and Namor himself. The use of the draconian katra.

"... and when I pressed it against her hand and activated it, it shunted me into her body. We fought in her mind. I won. For all intents and purposes, Divine died. It's just me now."

Throughout the thirty minute story, Namor said little, but listened attentively. Occasionally he asked a question for clarification, but otherwise he let her tell the story at her own pace. When she had finished, silence fell between them. She could hear the buzz of conversation from the rest of the room, but it was a distant, muted thing. The silence held for nearly a minute as the king of Atlantis considered her story, his eyes fixed upon hers, as if he could judge the truth of her words by reading it in her gaze. Then, just as the silence was growing unbearable, he nodded. "I believe you," he said. He tapped one of his jeweled rings with his index finger, and the conversation all around was fully audible again. He met the gaze of Scott Summers. "I am satisfied," he said. "The girl is not Divine." Then he looked to Karen again. "You may join your friends, Miss Zor-L."

Karen let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "Thank you," she managed, rose to her feet, and joined the other students.

* * *

><p>It was still the cocktail hour, though cocktails weren't actually being served. Still, a table was laden with appetizers and (non-alchoholic) drinks. Karen didn't actually know the names of most of the students who'd been allowed to attend the event, but she knew most of them by sight all the same. She and Irma talked and mingled for a few minutes before making their way over to the appetizer table. Karen was tempted to eat more than her fill here, but managed to restrain herself. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Noriko approach the new Cuckoo - not Joan, but the other one.<p>

"Hey Mindee," Noriko started.

Both Irma and the clone looked up. "What?" they both said.

Noriko started to say something, but then Irma blinked and looked at the clone, speaking before Noriko could get more than the initial sound out of her mouth. "Wait, what? You can't be Mindee."

The clone made a face. "Why not?" she asked.

"Because I was Mindee."

"So? You don't want to be Mindee."

"But that doesn't mean **you** can be Mindee."

"Why not?"

Irma glared. "...I..." Karen saw the frustration building in her expression, briefly thought about intervening, and then thought better of it. "Because! That's why!"

The clone frowned, thought about it, then asked, "Can I be Irma, then?"

"No! I'm Irma!"

"Then I'll be Mindee."

"No!"

Mindee looked annoyed. "You can't have both!"

Noriko tried not to stare, and held up a hand. "... I'll ask you later," she said, and moved off.

Mindee glared at Irma, then called after Nori, "Wait, Noriko!" and followed her.

Irma glanced sidelong at Karen. "Not a word," she said.

Karen couldn't quite keep the smile off her face. "I'm not saying anything," she said.

They talked for another few minutes before Irma said, quite suddenly, "So are you going to talk to Namorita?"

Karen's good mood evaporated. "... Nope," she said, though she hesitated.

"You're probably not going to get another chance. At least not anytime soon."

"Sounds good to me."

Irma fixed her with a level look. "Come on, Karen," she said. "You need to talk to her. Say something to her. You'll regret it if you don't. I'll be right here."

Karen sighed. "... I know. All right, all right." She turned away from Irma and made her way over to the person she'd tried not to look at, tried not to think about for the last forty minutes.

Namorita sat up as she approached, her cane now in her lap. She didn't say anything, and her face was completely without expression.

Karen stood in front of her, trying to think of something to say. Anything. It grew more and more awkward. She looked back at Irma, and Irma smiled encouragingly. "Hey," she managed at last.

Namorita looked at her, unflinching. "Hey," she replied, her tone neutral.

Karen looked at the ground. "I just wanted you to know that I'm really, really sorry for what happened to you."

Namorita sank back down into the couch and shook her head. "You don't have to be," she said distantly. "You're not her. You look like her, but you're... you're not."

Guilt welled up inside Karen's heart. She remembered. She remembered how good it had felt when Divine had killed the New Warriors. She remembered wiping them out as if they'd been bugs. How easy it had been! How like a god Divine had felt! She shuddered. She managed to look up. "I'm not," she echoed. "But I'm still sorry."

Namorita Prentiss's eyes gained focus. She looked Karen in the eye and held her gaze until Karen looked away. It didn't take long. The cocktail hour went on around them. The sound of conversation. A joke told across the room. A glass being refilled. Someone laughed. Karen looked at the floor.

"How many of that body's memories do you have?" Namorita asked.

Karen looked up in shock. "What?"

Namorita nodded. "I thought so." A pause. "Listen to me, Karen Zor-L," she said, her voice cold. "Whatever part of you is still Divine, that part of you I can never forgive. But you, the part that was you before you gained that body, have nothing to be forgiven for."

That didn't make Karen feel better, but she nodded. "I, uh, I appreciate that."

"Good," Namorita said. "Because that's the best I can do."

Karen let out a breath, and then nodded once again. "It was, uh, nice meeting you, Namorita."

Namorita remained silent.

"Hey, I just saw someone I need to talk to, so, uh... see you around."

Namorita said nothing.

Karen stepped away. "Hey," she told the random student that she'd seen out of the corner of her eye. He looked vaguely familiar.

The student blinked. "Er, hi," he said.

"Pretend we know each other," she told him. Karen thought about it. Oh yeah. She remembered. He was one of the guys that was openly leering at her the other day when she and Irma had kissed in the hall. And he was staring at her chest.

"Uh, right," he said, forcing his gaze upwards to meet her eyes. "Hey Karen. You liking this, uh, gathering?"

"It's nice," she replied. "Unexpected, but nice. I'm glad Namorita is recovering, too." And then they were out of Namorita's line of sight, and Karen let out the sigh she'd been holding back.

"We done?" the boy asked.

"Yup," Karen confirmed.

"Awesome." He rejoined his friends by the punch bowl.

Then Irma was at her side, and it was better.

* * *

><p>Consequences. Every act had consequences. Every thought. Every whispered word, everything spoken out loud, every action, every inaction. Emma Frost knew this well, and it was a bitter lesson.<p>

"What do you think?"

Emma didn't look at the speaker. Didn't take her eyes off the images of her two newest daughters on the screen, each of them sitting down at the formal dining table, looking unsure of themselves. Laurie Collins sat down with them. The sound was off. She couldn't hear the conversation. The girls smiled innocently as Laurie showed them how to use their silverware. Another girl - Noriko - laughed good naturedly at the sight, said something to the other girls.

Emma Frost had been in her office ever since she'd returned from England. She hadn't slept, and she'd left only briefly to shower, change her clothes, and re-apply her make-up. She looked fresh, wide-awake. She wasn't. "They're too soft," She said. "I need to toughen them up. If I teach them how to..."

The dinner began, and the girls each tried the soup. Identical expressions of delighted surprise lit up their faces.

"You already have three daughters just like you, Emma. They killed nine hundred and ninety-three of their sisters, remember?"

The temperature in the room seemed to drop, and Emma turned to direct an icy glare at the speaker. The elegant blonde woman in the mirror met her gaze with equal fury, with equal hurt and heartache half-hidden in her eyes.

"Shut up," Emma whispered.

Her reflection did not reply.

* * *

><p>The dinner was over, and a long evening drew towards its completion. The notes are the same. We've heard this song before. Two young women together in bed, about to make love to each other for the first time. Their clothes were mussed, and could come off at any moment. Their building passion interrupted by an unexpected message. The smartphone was a new thing to the girl who owned it. Strange and novel. The message set her eyes wide:<p>

**PG: Nightwing, I need you and anyone who's willing to come with you to come to Asgard ASAP. If the Xavier people won't take you, I can have a quinjet sent out. … it's bad. Flashpoint bad. Come quickly.**

An interruption and a decision. Choice and consequence.

Karen let out a breath. "I owe her, Irma. I'm not going to sit around here when she needs my help."

Irma nodded, and met Karen's eyes. "So let's go help her."

_(isn't this where...)_

END CHAPTER 07

Next: Across the Rainbow Bridge, Part III


	21. DU: Across the Rainbow Bridge, Part III

"Not yet," Layla said. "We have to stay."

Jamie Madrox stopped short. He'd been about to leave. The Xavier Institute wasn't really a place that felt welcoming to him anymore. Not for a while. Disagreements with the management. For all that he'd come to specialize in dealing with the unexpected and the unanticipated, he pretty much knew the drill every time he showed up at Xavier's. Attend to business. Trade insults with Summers. Show contempt for his fellow mutants that only part of him actually felt. Get asked to leave. Lather, rinse, repeat. "Why?" he asked. It was a question he was asking a lot these days, though rarely out loud.

The Atlantean dinner had let out half an hour ago, and the mansion was beginning to quiet down. A few students still wandered here and there. Layla looked up at him. "I told you. I have a sense of what's to come from a distance away. How things might turn out, and should turn out. I know we're supposed to be here today, and we're supposed to help Karen."

"And you can't tell me why."

"Nope."

Jamie tried to keep his rising irritation under control. "I've been patient up till now, but this is getting old, Layla. You playing little miss cryptic, doling out vague references to our future along with a bunch of philosophical crap about butterflies and hurricanes, and all of us being led around by the nose. If you're not willing to level with me, why should I do anything you say?" Rising irritation? Not so much under control.

"You could call a cab. Send me back to the orphanage."

Jamie didn't move, and slowly his anger and frustration began to drain away. Part of him wanted to do exactly what she'd suggested. But that was kind of the problem. Part of him wanted to do a lot of things. There was always a part that wanted to do **something**. Another part wanted to listen. A third part was upset about missing dinner. Another wanted to go back and tell Scott Summers something really insulting that he'd only just thought of but would have been really satisfying to have said in their previous conversation. Yet another wanted to do something unexpected. Yet another part thought he was being mean, and another part suggested that if he really wanted to, he could stomp his foot a bit, create some dupes, and do every single thing that every part of him wanted.

"You suck at decision-making," Layla said.

Jamie didn't say anything.

Somewhere upstairs, a door slammed open, the sound muted by long hallways but still audible to the two mutants where they stood. A split second later, a moving blur resolved into a tall, busty, incredibly fit black-haired girl, who took a second to glance around and reorient.

"Karen," Layla said.

The girl's head snapped around. "Hey. Er... you." There was no recognition in her eyes, but that didn't surprise Layla. "Look, I'm a little busy at the moment, so whatever it is, it'll have to..."

"You're gonna want to listen to us," Layla said. "We're here to help."

Karen raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?" At Layla's nod, Karen looked thoughtful. "OK," she said, gesturing towards Jamie, "I know you're the guy who runs X-Factor Investigations," she looked at Layla, "But who are you?"

"I'm Layla Miller."

"She knows stuff," Jamie said.

* * *

><p>Destination Unknown<br>by P.H. Wise  
>A Flashpoint Crossover Fanfic<p>

Chapter 8: Across the Rainbow Bridge, Part III

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is owned by Fran and Kaz Kuzui.

* * *

><p>Steve Rogers shut his communicator and replaced it on his belt. The message he had sent was simple enough: "Avengers, assemble!" and the coördinates for Asgardia.<p>

"We should put in a call to Xavier's, too," Steve said.

Tony frowned. "... maybe it's not such a good idea to bring them into this," he said.

Steve raised an eyebrow.

"They haven't been the most reliable lately."

"What are you talking about?"

Tony thought back. "I'm..." he trailed off. The last time the X-Men had done something questionable that he was aware of was... was when the Scarlet Witch went mad and wound up reordering reality to her whim. Since then, they'd been nothing if not accommodating and cooperative with the Avengers. He frowned. "... not sure," he finished.

Steve frowned, taking in his confused expression, his uncertain body language. "Are you feeling well?"

Tony smiled a bit ruefully. "Maybe I should have listened when the doctor said I needed some time to recover after what Ultron did to me."

"Maybe. You've been odd lately." He paused, and then his expression grew more serious. "Which reminds me. Tony, we need to talk."

Tony grimaced as he took note of the 'disappointed father' look on Steve's face. "OK, what'd I do?"

"About Kara."

"What about her?"

Steve looked Tony in the eye. "You need to back off," he said.

Tony looked at Steve for a second. "No. What I need is eight or nine shots of whiskey before we can have this conversation. Unfortunately, I can't have that, because I'm still on the sobriety train, so neither can you."

"I'm serious," Steve said. "The way you act around her is inappropriate."

"Inappropriate?" Tony asked incredulously. "Steve, it's me. This isn't about her age, is it? Because she's twenty five."

"That's exactly the problem."

Tony's tone grew even more incredulous. "You don't really think I'm taking advantage of her just by flirting with her, do you? Are we talking about the same girl? She could break me like a twig if she wanted to."

"What I think is that while she may be twenty five years old, her body is only seventeen. You're one of the leaders of the Avengers, we operate out of your tower, and it doesn't matter in the eyes of the law that she was twenty five before she was de-aged: she's seventeen. The ID we made for her says as much."

Now Tony was getting annoyed, and it showed. "What's your point, Steve?"

"My point is that I think you bring out the worst in each other, that she's turned you down repeatedly and you haven't stopped, and that even if she was interested, it would still be a bad idea given the simple math that she's physically seventeen, and you're..."

"A genius billionaire playboy philanthropist?" Tony interrupted.

"Forty," Steve finished.

Tony glared. "You're eighty four."

"You don't see me hitting on her, do you? Come on, Tony. You're smarter than and I lead this team. You can't keep pushing unwanted sexual advances on a teammate."

Tony fell silent for several moments. "... I know," he said. He shook his head. "I can't explain it. There's just something about her that... grabs me." Steve saw where Tony was going with that immediately: he'd just taken the first step in shifting the blame for his own behavior onto Kara. He gave Tony a disapproving look. For a moment, it looked like Tony was going to try to defend himself further, but then he stopped and let out a sigh. "I'll behave," he said. "Promise."

They shook on it. And then Captain America took out his communicator once more. "Xavier's," he said.

Tony nodded.

* * *

><p>Lois Lane woke up in a soft bed. It was warm, and her leg throbbed with the dull pain of a severe wound that had been healing for days. For a moment, her thoughts seemed lined with heavy wool. Then her eyes gained focus. She lay beneath smooth white sheets and furs of every sort, her head on soft white pillows. The room was strange: it was open to the sky, and a carefully tended grove of trees stood at its center. All around the trees grew herbs that filled the room with a pleasant, earthy scent.<p>

She felt... comfortable.

The door opened, and a woman entered. She was slender and young, with reddish blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin, dressed all in brown and green. She spoke, and her voice was like music. "Ah, you're awake. Good."

Lois watched the woman approach her bed. She had to swallow twice before she could speak. "Who are you? Where am I?"

The woman smiled. "I am Eir, goddess of healing, and you are in the city of Asgardia."

Of all the possible replies, that hadn't been high on Lois' list of expectations. "... Huh." Her eyelids drifted briefly shut.

"Lady Kára and the mortals who brought you here will wish to know that you are awake." A warm hand pressed against Lois's forehead. "No sign of fever. Good. I believe the worst is over."

"How long was I out?" Lois opened her eyes. The room was empty. She looked about. No sign of Eir. Presently, the door opened, and instead of Eir, the girl Artemis had called Kara of Atlantis stepped through the door.

"How long?" Lois asked again.

Kara's lips twitched as if in the effort of trying not to smile. "A few hours."

Lois blinked. "A few hours?" she asked incredulously. Eir. Goddess of healing. Asgardia. "The Norse gods are allied with Atlantis, then?" she asked.

Kara shook her head. "Not exactly, no. I know what Artemis said, but I'm not Atlantean."

Lois sat up, ignored both her own exhaustion and the dull throbbing pain in her thigh, and tried to recall what she remembered about Norse mythology. "... Vanir, then?" she asked. She was taking this way better than she'd ever thought she could. Then again, she'd just spent thirty plus weeks training under the Amazons of Themyscira in an attempt to infiltrate their power structure and learn of their plans, and only missed out on becoming immortal herself by a few hours, so maybe her weirdness quotient was just full up.

This time Kara did smile. "Depends on who you ask," she said. "But no. Kryptonian." She let a beat pass, and the smile faded. "I believe you've already met my cousin."

Lois frowned. "I haven't met..."

"It was a long time ago. You were both children."

Lois's eyes widened. The boy. She was talking about the boy who was part of her father's project in Metropolis. It had been what had driven her to become a reporter in the first place: uncovering the truth about that boy, and what had really happened in New York the year she was born. The government had called it a terrorist attack. Three whole city blocks in the middle of downtown Metropolis destroyed when something had fallen from the sky. But it hadn't been a missile: it had been a ship. The government had covered it up, took the ship, took the boy and the dog that had been within, and folded it all into her father's super-soldier project: Project Superman. Kara was his cousin. "You're going to break him out."

Kara nodded. "Probably."

Lois looked Kara in the eye. They were the same eyes. The same blue eyes as the boy she'd met as a child. There were other similarities, too. The shape of the nose. The set of the eyes. The smile. Hell, if Kara'd had black hair instead of blonde, she'd have looked like his sister. "There are good people who work on that project," she said.

"I'll be careful. I don't kill people." She shook her head. "It's not what I do."

Lois studied Kara's eyes for a moment before nodding. "Thank you."

"Hey," Kara said, "It's the least I can do for cross-temporal family." She winked. Lois wasn't sure how to respond to that, but Kara seemed to blur around the room, picked up a pair of crutches from where they had rested against the far wall, returned to Lois's bedside, held them out to her, and spoke, all before she could reply. "You feel well enough to meet the others?"

Lois took the crutches, moved to the side of the bed, and then, very carefully, stood up. Her muscles groaned in protest, but she managed not to aggravate her leg. "Absolutely," she said

* * *

><p>The flight to Asgardia took the better part of three hours. As the Blackbird set down on a landing pad next to one of the Avengers' quinjets. The landing pad was oddly incongruous with the rest of the city - a little piece of ordinary Earth technology in the midst of the flying city of the Norse gods. A giant ash tree stood just behind the largest cluster of towers on the city's largest island, looming above them, tall and strong, its branches wide, giving shade to all below it.<p>

"Wow," Karen whispered. Here and there, the Norse gods walked the streets, strong, tall and mighty.

Irma walked down the ramp next, dressed in her blue and white uniform, a faint smile upon her lips. "Wow is right," she said.

Behind Irma came the Surge, Hellion, Prodigy, Dust, Elixir, X-23, Mercury, and Rockslide - Noriko, Julian, David, Sooraya, Joshua, Laura, Cessily, and Santo - all in their black and gold uniforms as the New X-Men. After the New X-Men cleared the ramp, two more exited the plane behind them, the first a handsome dark haired man of average height with a long leather jacket and otherwise ordinary clothes, the second a blonde girl who couldn't be older than fourteen, her hair in pigtails, dressed in a white tank top, a denim skirt, black and red leggings, and tennis shoes.

Power Girl was there waiting for them at the edge of the platform. A woman on crutches was next to her: a weirdly familiar, beautiful, fierce looking woman with black hair and blue eyes.

"Hey Karen," Power Girl called.

"Hey," Karen replied. "I brought everyone I could."

Kara nodded. "I'm impressed. Scott and Emma let you leave with your entire team plus a Blackbird?"

Karen's laugh was a little too loud, and the others exchanged nervous looks. "Kind of."

Kara raised an eyebrow. "... Ah. So you did it behind their backs, took the Blackbird without permission, and nobody actually has clearance to be outside of Xavier's?"

"Not exactly, but close."

Kara sighed. "Well, I'm glad you came anyways." She gestured to Karen. "Lois, this is my sister, Karen Zor-L." She gestured to Lois. "Karen, meet Lois Lane."

Lois Lane. At the invocation of that mythic name, Karen's whole world seemed to screech to a stop. She recognized the woman now, and despite her being much younger than Karen had ever pictured her, she couldn't for the life of her understand why she hadn't recognized her immediately. This was Lois. Freaking. Lane. Her eyes widened slowly, and her whole body language changed. The weight in her heart lifted, and her mouth dropped open slightly. Then she began to smile, the smile quickly widening into a full blown grin. "Lois Lane?" she asked.

The mutants present - Irma excepted - exchanged confused looks, and Lois seemed just as confused, but nodded. "Um," Lois said, "Yeah."

"**The** Lois Lane?"

"Only one I know about," Lois replied, now more bemused than baffled.

Karen laughed, a sense of wild euphoria racing through her, and then...

* * *

><p>"I did not!" Karen insisted as they walked into the entrance hall of Himinbjörg, citadel of Heimdall. She was STILL blushing, which wasn't doing anything to give her denials credibility.<p>

"You totally did," Noriko replied.

"No I didn't!"

"You squeed worse than Spider-Man the first time he met Captain America."

"I didn't!" Karen paused. "And how would you even know if Spider-Man squeed when he met Captain America?"

"It's kind of legendary," Julian said.

"Hey," Cessily said, not quite able to keep the grin off of her face, "It's cool. Rock that fangirl thing, Karen. Nobody's judging you."

Karen gave them all sour looks. "I just want you to know that I hate all of you."

"Thou spakest true," a deep male voice said, its tone one of wonderment. "If not for the difference in hair, I could not discern which was Kára and which not."

Karen looked at the speaker, taking in his features, his garb, her eyes gaining focus as she employed her telescopic vision to read the inscription on the hammer he carried. "Doesn't Thor have red hair?" she wondered aloud. Thor raised an eyebrow, and Karen quickly backtracked. "Not that there's anything wrong with blondes. I, uh, I have plenty of blonde friends." Then it occured to her that she might have just made things even worse, blushed, and imagined herself being burned to a crisp by the lightning of an angry Thor. "So, um, please don't smite me." 'Suave, Karen,' she thought sarcastically, 'Very Suave. You are the prince of cool.'

"Plenty of blonde friends?" Irma asked with a dangerous note in her voice.

"Aren't you invincible?" Santo asked.

Not to magic. She didn't voice that out loud, but it was there in her thoughts. "Uh... can we go back and start this conversation over?"

Thor laughed. "Yes, now I see the differences. Come, if we are to save Kára's world, we must all act quickly. The time for explanations has come, but let them be swift."

The Avengers were waiting at the very threshold of Bifröst. Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Spider Woman, Luke Cage, Ms. Marvel, and... and... 'Oh shit,' Karen thought.

Wolverine leaned against the wall in his full yellow costume, a lit cigar in his mouth.

"Uh... hey Logan," Cessily said nervously.

Wolverine smirked. "Hey yourself," he said.

When Wolverine didn't say anything else, Cessily spoke again, "Er, you're not going to send us back?"

"Ya want me to?"

"Of course not!"

Wolverine nodded. "Good."

"Let's get down to business," Kara said. "I need you all to understand what you're walking into. I know you all said you'd help, but if you change your mind after you hear this, I'm not going to hold it against you. Karen and I will go by ourselves if we have to. It's not your world that's in danger. It's ours." She paused, waiting until she had everyone's attention. "It's called the Flashpoint," she said at last.

"OK," Spider-Man said, "I'll bite. What's the Flashpoint?"

"It all comes back to time travel," Kara explained. "A good man, a friend, discovered that the reason his mother had died when he was a child was because one of his enemies had gone back in time and murdered her. Just to make him suffer. For hate's sake. No other reason. He didn't take it well."

"Let me guess," Tony said. "He went back in time to save her, and things got a little out of hand?"

"Pretty much," Karen said. "When the Flash went back in time to prevent his mother's murder, he screwed up the whole planet. He saves his mother's life, but doing it makes him the butterfly of doom and alters history willy nilly, and now it's apocalypse season and the people who would normally deal with it either don't exist anymore or are part of the problem."

David and Noriko exchanged glances. "That sounds like an incredibly dangerous situation," David said, "It's tragic, yes, but how does us jumping into it help anything?"

"Here's the thing. We already know what's going to happen. The whole world is going to be destroyed, but at the moment it dies, the Flash is going to run back to stop himself from going back in time in the first place."

David raised an eyebrow. "So the problem is going to solve itself? I'm asking again, how does our jumping into it help anything?"

"When time resets, it resets wrong. When the Flash is in the time stream, this woman shows up out of nowhere and feeds him this lie about the history of heroes being divided into three, and how she wants his help to recombine it. He agrees, apparently because he's a gullible schmuck. Three timelines become one timeline, and everything's different. Three universes wiped out, a new one put up in their place. Nobody remembers the old world. And people are missing. People who now just... never existed. Important people. One of them is a girl named Atlee."

Lois spoke up, then, "Are you telling me that my entire world and everything I remember is some big mistake? That the entire course of my life and everyone else's on Earth was derailed by one man trying to save his mother's life?" She grew angrier as she spoke. "I suppose he's responsible for the war between Themyscira and Atlantis, too? It's his fault that Grodd exterminated half the humans in Africa? That Atlantis sent tidal waves to destroy Europe?" When she saw the expression on Karen and Kara's faces, her mouth dropped open slightly. "Oh my God, that IS what you're saying, isn't it? Look, my world may not be perfect, but that doesn't mean you can just destroy it to bring back some other version of it that you happen to prefer."

Karen looked away. Kara didn't. "It doesn't work that way, Lois," Kara said. "Your world is going to be destroyed anyways. Even if we save it from the Atlanteans and the Amazons, there's something worse rampaging through the cosmos, and without the heroes of Earth to stop them, the Black Lanterns are in the process of destroying all life in your universe. We can't stop that. What we can decide is whether or not three other worlds die as well."

"So because you think my world is doomed, you expect me to help you end it in order to bring back a version of it that I don't and won't remember, to be replaced by some other version of me that won't really be me?"

No one said anything for a long moment.

"Do you want to?" Layla asked.

Lois looked at the girl. "Want to?" she asked.

"Remember."

"I don't understand."

"I can help you to understand. To remember. But it will change you."

Luke Cage seemed to notice Layla for the first time. "You..." he muttered.

Lois hesitated. "How will it change me?"

"You'll remember your life in Kara's world," Iron Man said, and something in his voice suggested he was speaking from experience. "You'll still be you, but you'll remember both lives."

Layla nodded. "Wanna see what they're fighting for?" she asked.

Lois stared at Layla. Karen could hear her heartbeat quickening. She hesitated for what seemed like an eternity, and then nodded. "... Do it."

Layla smiled. "Okey-dokey," she said. Her eyes flared with green light. A second later, that same light burned in Lois' eyes. Irma winced and looked away. A single tear flowed down Lois' cheek. Then it was over.

"... Clark..." Lois whispered, her eyes wide, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. She looked at Kara. "Kara," she said, and put a hand to her forehead. "Oh my God. Kara, they put Clark in a CAGE. My own father... we have to get him out of there!"

Kara smiled, and her voice was thick with her own emotions when she spoke, "We'll get him out. It's good to have you back, Lois."

Karen's jaw hung open, and a sense of creeping horror crawled up and down her spine. "Are you still you?" she asked, though she feared that whatever Lois might say, the answer was probably 'no.'

Lois looked down at herself, then up at Karen, leaning against Kara for support. "I think so," she said. "... I still feel like me, at least. It's strange. I can remember the moment it changed, both times. It was after work. Clark and I were having a night in. We were in the middle of dinner, and then... it was like falling asleep."

Karen nodded, her sense of horror fading into a deep unease. "What do you think now that you remember?" she asked.

Lois shook her head. "I still don't think we can just erase the universe, even if we're going to bring back the old world. We have to do something. Save as many as we can. Even if they're going to die anyways, we're in a position to do something. They don't deserve to die, and they don't deserve to just cease existing, either."

"So bring them here," Captain America said.

"Would that work?" Lois asked.

"It worked for Power Girl and her sister," Captain America said.

Lois frowned, and looked at Kara, "Since when did you have a sister, anyways?" she asked.

Kara shook her head. "That's not important right now. What's important is that the Captain's right. We weren't affected by the changes. ... because we were here."

The explanations went more smoothly after that. Karen and Kara took turns speaking, each relating what they knew. Half an hour later, with the plan agreed to, they prepared to step onto the Rainbow Bridge.

"OK," Spider-Man said, "We go to the new universe, we save as many people as we can, we get as much support as we can using Layla's powers, we warn Flash Gordon about the probably not Galifreyan Time Lady..."

"And we prevent the destruction of three universes," Kara finished. She took a breath and clenched her fist. "There's no unstoppable anti-matter wave this time, no Anti-Monitor, no red skies. I am NOT letting this happen again."

Before anyone could ask her what she meant by that last, she stepped onto the Rainbow Bridge, and was gone. Karen was about to follow when Santo pointed at something above the entrance to the courtyard and asked in a very small voice, "Um... guys? Who's that?"

Karen turned. There, floating in the air just above the door that led into the citadel, was a strange bald robed being, his head disproportionately large, his eyes glowing, a sense of power all about him. Karen took an involuntary step back... and onto Bifröst. The light took her.

* * *

><p>Flashes in the dark. Stars and galaxies whirled past. At the outer walls of reality, at the very edge of the expansion wave of the Big Bang itself, something moved in the darkness. A vast fleet poured out from the Crunch Zone, dark and deadly, and Karen had a brief glimpse of the wreckage of untold hundreds of enormous spheroid space stations all in a cluster around the outer barrier. Then the Rainbow Bridge carried her through, and everything went white.<p>

Her vision seemed to clear, but the white didn't fade: it simply took the form of walls, floor, and ceiling. A white room. It was pleasantly cool, and there was a faint breeze, but no features otherwise. A strange little man stood a few feet away, dressed all in orange and purple, and he looked... really, really familiar. He was old but not infirm. There was a certain cherubic quality to his face that suggested youth despite his crow's feet and the wispy white hair. There was a mischievous light in his eyes, and he wore a tiny, undersized purple bowler hat. Even as she saw him, he lifted a finger to his lips. "Shhh," he said, his voice a near whisper, and he winked. "Oblivion doesn't need to know about you."

"Who are you?" Karen asked, lowering her voice to match his.

"A friend," the strange little man replied. "We'll play some games together soon, I think. But not today."

Karen opened her mouth, but before she had time to say anything else, the room was gone, and the strange little man with it.

It came in a flash. Darkness and heat and sound and color as she emerged from the path of Bifröst onto the solid ground. Pavement beneath her feet. The sounds of a city. It was night. The stars shone brightly above, and the moon was waxing. And all around her rose a somber, almost gothic skyline. Dark, looming, gargoyled skyscrapers climbed cancerously towards the stars, with skybridges like spider webs against the night sky.

A chill went down Karen's spine as she recognized her surroundings: this could only be Gotham City. But this was weird: someone had turned Gotham into Vegas. There were Casinos everywhere. Lights everywhere. Billboards. Electronic advertisements. Not just what you'd expect in a normal city, but loud, glitzy, and everywhere. Oh, and people were screaming, and the crowds on either side of the street parted in panic: her arrival had not gone unnoticed. She had time enough to realize that she'd landed in the middle of the street before something heavy hit her in the back and sent her tumbling and then skidding across the pavement. "... Ow," she said, though it hadn't hurt her so much as it had surprised her. She got up, and met the terrified eyes of the cab driver with her own. His bumper was a total loss, and the front end of his car was visibly dented, but it was still running.

She floated into the air.

"Mommy," a little girl said, "Who's she?"

On the left hand side of the street stood the old Wayne Tower, and a little thrill went through her as she recognized it, but she didn't have time to dwell on the incipient nerdgasm that just being in Gotham City was bringing on. She tapped the golden X on her cape's clasp, and her communicator turned on. "This is Nightwing," she said. "Can anyone hear me?"

Nothing.

People weren't screaming anymore, but she was getting stares from easily four hundred people, and police officers were approaching through the crowd.

A man's voice filtered up from the crowd, "Maybe she's a superhero, like Citizen Cold in Central City!" She looked down at that. Citizen Cold. That name sounded familiar, but... no, not important. Thor had mentioned that the Rainbow Bridge might be unreliable, might put them in different places. She'd stick around to give the others time to appear, but until they did, it was time to get out of sight.

Karen shot into the sky like a rocket, leaving the crowd below to stare and wonder. When ten minutes of waiting didn't produce any of the others, she began to get worried. After twenty minutes, worry had been replaced by that yawning sense of doom more commonly associated with the realization one makes halfway through a fall that there are spikes at the bottom of this pit trap and oh God but her thought process really just went to Dungeons and Dragons. Right. 'OK,' she thought. 'If I remember correctly, they might be at Wayne Manor.' Then, out loud she said, "And there's another thing to add to my list of things I never thought I'd say: I wish I'd obsessed a little more over my comic books."

Which brought up the next problem: she had no idea where Wayne Manor was. She scanned the streets below for phone booths. … there weren't any. Descending from the sky to ask random passers-by if they knew where Wayne Manor was didn't seem like a good idea, either. Gas station, then. She took a second to locate one, and then descended to street level.

* * *

><p>Karl de Vries didn't much like his job. He didn't much like Gotham, either, but what can you do? His parents had immigrated here from the Netherlands when his mother was still pregnant with him, and he'd never had the wherewithal to leave. He wasn't much to look at, with strictly average looks granted only a moderate bit of interest by Spanish eyes in an otherwise unremarkable face. He'd fallen in with the wrong crowd a few years back, but after he'd realized what they were doing, he'd gone to the police, people had gone to jail, and then life had gotten boring again. Today had been another long, bullshit day which faded into a long, bullshit evening of faking friendliness and interest in the people who came in to buy gas and snacks at Gotham Gas &amp; Market.<p>

He wasn't paying much attention when the bell rang. Someone had walked in. He could hear the sound of boots on the floor. He looked up, and his breath caught in his throat; the girl who had just walked in was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen. She was tall, with black hair and blue eyes and was wearing a black and silver cape with red lining, a black bodysuit with a cleavage window, boots and gloves... he shifted slightly, tried not to look at her breasts, totally failed, tried to nod casually, and asked, "Can I have you?" Then he realized what he'd said, paled slightly, and amended, "... help you."

The girl didn't look terribly impressed. "Is this how Buffy felt?" she wondered aloud. She shook her head and looked Karl in the eye. "You got a copy of the yellow pages I can look at?"

"Uh... sure." He pulled the phone book out from behind the counter and set it down for her to look at. She flipped it open to the W section and started scanning through. After a few seconds, the clasp on her cloak clicked. She tapped it, and the X on it lit up in time for a resonant male voice to speak through it, "... Cage callin' any Avenger or X-Man, please respond."

Karl tried very hard not to stare.

"Cage!" the girl said, sounding relieved.

"Power Girl?" the voice asked.

"Nightwing," she corrected.

"Oh." There was some disappointment in the voice's tone. "Is anyone else with you?"

"Just me," the girl said.

The bell rang again as someone walked in through the door. Karl looked up, and his blood went cold: he recognized the young man who'd just entered. One of the 'bad crowd.'

"... Will," he said.

"Hey," the girl said, "What's the address here?"

Will pulled a gun from his jacket. "Hello, Karl. Here I was convinced that you'd be in hiding somewhere on the other side of the country after what you did, when the boss tells me you've been seen working a gas station on Gate. And all I can think is that you must have a death wish."

Karl's eyes fixed on the gun, on the barrel that was now pointed at him. The girl saw the gun, and she froze for just a second. Will gave her a look of casual contempt. "Stay out of this, bitch. Maybe you'll walk out alive." Will returned his attention to Karl, who was trying very hard not to tremble. "Going to the police?" Will asked. "Informing the God damned BATMAN about our activities? Well congratulations, Karl. I'm gonna grant your wish." He shifted his aim slightly to point the gun directly at Karl's head, and Karl knew that he was about to die.

"Will," he said, his voice thick with terror, "Please don't do this."

"Goodbye, Karl." Will pulled the trigger. The sound of the gun's discharge was accompanied by a loud crack from another source. Karl felt a rush of wind in front of his face... as the girl caught the bullet in her bare hand, and was completely unharmed. Karl and Will both turned to stare at her.

She took the gun from Will's limp hand, crushed it into a ball, and dropped it to the ground with a thunk. "No, seriously," she said. "What's the address here?"

* * *

><p>By the time Luke Cage walked into the gas station at 1231 Gate Blvd, the crook was unconscious and tied up with duct tape, the police were on their way, and the excitement was past. Well, for everyone who wasn't the attendant. "Yeah," he said into the phone, "A girl. Tall, black hair, black and silver costume, gorgeous, stacked, built like a fucking amazon!" A pause. "I shit you not."<p>

Karen tried not to grimace.

"Damn, girl," Cage said as he walked through the door. "What happened?"

Karen shrugged. "Oh, you know. Causing trouble, stopping crimes, kind of not wanting to be here when the police arrive." They started walking. "... Also, don't call me 'girl.'"

"Why not?"

"It kind of creeps me out." Seeing the expression on his face, she quickly amended, "I've already got enough gender-identity issues as is."

Cage put up a hand to forestall further explanation, "Ain't no problem. If it bothers you, then I won't call you 'girl.'"

"Thanks." Karen said. She took a moment to call out in her thoughts: _'Irma, are you there? Can you hear me?'_ … Nothing. She looked to Cage."So you haven't seen or heard from anyone else?"

Luke Cage shook his head. "Nope."

"You sure?"

A note of very minor irritation filtered into his tone. "Come on, Nightwing, would I lay a jive rap on you?"

Karen blinked. "... Jive... rap?" she asked incredulously.

"What?"

"I think I just threw up in my mouth."

Cage shook his head, "Kids these days," he muttered.

"Look," Karen said, "I'm sure it's a perfectly cromulent phrase. But that's not important. What is important is sticking to the plan."

"Right," he said. "Since we wound up closest to Gotham, we're on Batman duty."

"Yup." Karen looked his way. "Don't suppose you can fly or anything?"

Cage shook his head again. "Nah. Unbreakable skin, superhuman strength and stamina, quick healing, that kind of thing."

"A flying brick without the flying."

"Something like that."

"OK," Karen said, "Looks like I need to carry you."

"Say what?"

Karen shifted awkwardly from side to side. "To get to Wayne Manor. As fast as we can. I, uh..."

Cage gave her a serious look. "Nightwing, relax. It's cool. I've been in the hero business for years, I know how it works. The day needs saving, and the sooner we save it, the sooner I can get back to my wife and my little girl."

Karen's cheeks flushed with shame, and she nodded. "... Sorry."

"I'm already over it."

Without another word, Karen picked up Luke Cage and lifted off into the sky. It started to rain, and both Karen and Cage were quickly soaked.

Wayne Manor sat alone and forlorn across the river to the north of Gotham, and the flight there took about ten minutes at the easy pace Karen set for herself - more a concession to the rain than anything else; even with super-senses, going faster in this downpour would have killed her visibility. She almost missed it - would have, if she hadn't known where she was going; Karl de Vries had proven a useful resource after she'd saved his life, and he'd known where the old manor was. An old red two-door car sat in front if its gates. The hedges had gone wild, and the manor was overgrown with ivy. The windows on the first floor were boarded up, and mostly broken on the second. Karen landed easily in the grass behind the manor and let Cage down onto his own feet. They were in the Wayne family graveyard, and being here felt vaguely sacrilegious. A gravestone stood not far away, and the sight of it gave her chills: Bruce Wayne, Beloved Son.

"A'ight," Cage said, "We're here." He put his right fist into the palm of his left hand with a smirk. "Want me to go up and knock?"

"Just... hold on a second," she said, allowing her vision to shift. Most of the time, she was content to ignore what lay beneath the surface of things. It was still there, of course, but it wasn't present in the same way. It wasn't quite the same thing as pretending not to notice that someone was naked: it was more like intentionally not seeing the color blue, and now she was flipping a switch in her head and seeing everything. She looked down, saw Thomas Wayne's batcave beneath the manor, scanned through the manor itself, then looked to the roof.

A flash of lightning split the sky. Someone spoke on the roof. An old man, gruff and angry but with grudging admiration in his tone: "You really are crazy." "Like a fox," replied the voice of a younger man. "Now get me back in."

"Hey Nightwing," Luke Cage called, "I think there's someone up there on the..." Lightning struck the roof and an explosion ripped through the night, sending a plume of fire into the sky. "SWEET CHRISTMAS! He's falling!"

Karen followed the line of Cage's finger to the dark, caped and cowled figure that was falling off the roof towards the spiked iron fence below. A crack split the air as she broke the sound barrier flying to catch him, but mere miliseconds before she could, a streak of gold that she could barely follow shot down from the roof, intercepted Batman's falling form, and deposited him safely on the grass, all in the time it took her to cross the last three feet between her and her target.

A badly burned, bandaged Barry Allen set Batman down on the grass on the far side of the yard. "Told you," he said.

"Flash!" Karen called, not bothering to land.

Batman and Barry Allen both turned. Batman's eyes narrowed. Barry's widened. "Friend of yours?" Batman asked.

"She looks like..." Barry hesitated. "Power Girl?" he asked incredulously. "You remember me?"

The sound of heavy footsteps. Someone running through the rain. Luke Cage came jogging into view. "Hey, everyone alive over there?"

Karen shook her head. "I'm not her, but I know you. Call me Nightwing." She gestured to Cage. "This is Luke Cage. He's a friend. Power Girl is here, though. She remembers you, and as soon as she makes contact, you can meet up with her."

Barry looked from Karen to Cage and back. "God, you could be her twin!" His eyes widened once again as an unpleasant thought occurred to him: "... or her clone." He shook his head. "You say you know me, and she remembers me? How is that possible?"

"It's a really, really long story."

"It usually is," Batman said, his tone dark.

She looked to Luke. "Everyone's fine, Cage," she said, and Cage nodded. "Here's the short version," Karen began, "Power Girl and I were both in an alternate universe when history changed. Jury's still out on whether it protected us or if we're gonna go all Marty McFly fadeout on you. I'm gonna be honest, kind of hoping for the former."

Barry laughed, even though it obviously hurt him to do so. "Oh my God," he said. "This is great! With you and Power Girl here, and, I'm guessing Mr. Cage will be useful, too..." He turned to Batman. "With their help, we might actually be able to do this!"

Karen ruthlessly squelched the part of her that was freaking out over having a conversation with the Flash, and shook her head. "It's more complicated than you think," she said. "And you're really not going to like it."

"Explain it, then," Batman ordered.

Holy crap but older, gruffer, angrier Batman was scary. She knew intellectually that there was basically nothing he could do that could possibly hurt her, but that didn't stop her heart from leaping up into her throat every time he glared. "OK," Karen said, and really wished that Kara were here to do this in her stead, "Here goes nothing."

END CHAPTER 08

Next: Scattered


	22. DU: Scattered, Part I

There came a time when the Old Gods died. And the brave died with the cunning. The noble perished, locked in battle with unleashed evil. It was the last day for them; an ancient era passing in fiery holocaust. Lokee, god of mischief and bastard son of the chief god Wotan, led the forces of darkness against the God World, and God World burned. Asgard burned beneath the touch of Rag'narok, and the Old Gods died.

Within the safety of her Sanctum Sanctorum, separated from the gods of the Third World by time and by the roiling storm of Paradox which maintained the Flashpoint, Pandora watched the destruction through her scrying mirror. Heimdall fell and was no more. Thor met his end. Wotan died. The Rainbow Bridge was rent asunder and all who stood upon its fiery span were cast down into the depths.

The final moment came with the fatal release of an indescribable power which tore the home of the Old Gods asunder - split it in great halves - and filled the universe with the blinding death-flash of its destruction. In the end there were two giant molten bodies, spinning slow and barren - clean of all that had gone before - adrift in the fading sounds of cosmic thunder.

Asgard was gone, and the Rainbow Bridge had gone with it.

None of which explained how or why the Rainbow Bridge had just deposited nearly a dozen beings onto the Earth, and _inside her Flashpoint._

The magical signature of their arrival could not be mistaken for anything else: Bifröst had brought them here. Somehow. Dead and long forgotten Bifröst, which even now lay in utter ruin, some few remnant parts scattered between what was left of the twin planets of Apokalips and New Genesis, had been used to bring a new factor into this crisis.

Why now? If the Old Gods had survived Ragnarok, why had they chosen _now _to make their presence known again? Now, when she was so close to her goal. Just a little longer, and it all would have fallen into place!

Pandora tried not to grind her teeth: inflexibility had led to the destruction of far too many gods. It would not lead to hers. This interference was already throwing things off course, and it required a response. It would be far easier if she still possessed her Mother Box, but it had been taken from her long ago when she had been banished from New Genesis for all time: the Highfather had accused her of 'unleashing the evils of the universe' with her experiments. It had been a ridiculous charge, but it still rankled.

She didn't know what had become of her Box since then. Destroyed along with New Genesis, perhaps? No matter. Steepling her hands in front of her face, she considered carefully what course of action to take.

Of course. There. That was the first. Her course decided, Pandora began her work. They would _not _derail her plans, not when she was this close! She would merge the three universes, and from their wreckage would arise one that could endure what was to come. She had to.

There wasn't any other choice.

* * *

><p>Destination Unknown<p>

by P.H. Wise

A New X-Men Crossover Fanfic

Chapter 9: Scattered, Part 1

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is owned by Fran and Kaz Kuzui. Some of the text of this chapter is taken from the Flashpoint comic series. Some small amount of text is also taken from 'The New Gods.' I don't own those, either.

* * *

><p>He floated above the ruins of Paris, most of it underwater, with only the tops of skyscrapers and the upper half of the Eiffel Tower showing that there had been a city here. Overturned boats were scattered all throughout amidst floating debris.<p>

His name was Abin Sur.

"Ring," he said. "Scan for life signs."

"**One life form detected**," the Ring announced.

Abin Sur looked about and saw no sign of life. "Where?" he asked. "Who?"

"Abin."

He looked up. Thaal Sinestro of Korugar floated in the air above him, clad in the uniform of a Green Lantern and surrounded by a nimbus of green power.

"Thaal," he said. "Have the Guardians sent you to take my ring? For refusing to leave this world to die?"

"No," Sinestro said. "The Guardians do not know I am here. I need to tell you of a prophecy, foretold by Atrocitus."

"Prophecy?"

Sinestro nodded. "He called it the Flashpoint."

"What madness do you speak of?"

"A Flashpoint is a moment in time with infinite potential for transformation. It can change everything, moving forward and backward. Not just an alternate universe spun off where a man turns left instead of right, but a moment when all that was, all that is, and all that ever can be is in flux, and there can be a complete transformation of an existing timeline on a level that not even Atrocitus fully understood. Someone from Earth created this one. They altered history, and not just the history of this world, but the history of the entire universe." He let that sink, and then went on, "Atrocitus spoke of a prior timeline. One where Ungara still exists."

A hope long extinguished rekindled in Abin Sur's heart. "Is," he began, "Is my sister still alive?"

Sinestro shut his eyes, bringing his emotions under control. "... No," he said, his voice still thick. He looked Abin Sur in the eye. "And neither are you."

Abin Sur swallowed. His hope went out. "... I see," he said.

"But a being from this backwater planet is attempting to alter the timeline once more to resolve the Flashpoint. He calls himself the Flash." Sinestro clenched his fist, and an image of the Flash appeared in the air, lightning crackling around his form as he ran in front of a spinning Earth. "I can make this Flash change the world in our image. I can fix **everything.**"

Abin shook his head. "Atrocitus has poisoned your mind with his lies, old friend." He allowed a green spiked mace to coalesce in his hands.

Sinestro held out his own hands, and a double-bladed sword formed from his will. "Atrocitus told me that as long as you're alive, I will fail." There was sorrow in his tone, but his will was too strong for that to sway him from his course. "I am sorry, Abin. I truly am, but I will bring you back, too. I promise."

Their battle was a bitter thing. A sad thing. Will against will, and Sinestro's was the stronger, for Abin Sur truly did not wish to harm his oldest, dearest friend, and Sinestro had the will to do so to his own. Abin Sur's constructs shattered before Thaal Sinestro's, Sinestro plunged one end of his double-bladed sword through Abin Sur's shoulder, and Abin Sur knew pain.

"I don't want to do this," Sinestro said, "But once the Flash's power is mine, this will never have happened, and you won't remember it." He twisted the sword, allowing the lower blade to snap off inside of Abin Sur's body, then raised the other. "I am sorry," he said, "But the universe needs me."

"You are not a god, Thaal," Abin said.

"No," Sinestro said sadly. "I'm not. Goodbye, old friend." He brought the blade down.

Abin Sur reached into his own well of willpower, reaching out through his connection to the ring, drawing in power beyond even Sinestro's wildest dreams. Light blazed around him, and then… a word. A whisper. He felt something settle between his will and the ring. Something soft as silk, yet tougher than steel. The glow winked out, and his eyes had time to widen.

Sinestro's blade struck home. And as he died, Abin Sur saw a woman floating in the air for just a moment behind Sinestro. A woman all in purple, and beautiful, with eyes that carried a sense of immense age. There and gone.

His ring departed from his finger, and he quickly lost sight of it.

Darkness took him.

* * *

><p>Darkness gave her up. The Ginnungagap released her, and she arrived in a burst of rainbow-colored light; immediately, something flashed around her. Her eyes gained focus, but whatever it was had already faded.<p>

Irma frowned, taking in her surroundings. "And we're back in people-in-tube-land," she groused. And so she was: she stood in a long corridor sprawled with black cables. At regular intervals, glass pods held naked humans suspended in an unknown fluid, each pod shining with pink light. A mist hung in the air. Something had gone wrong. She thought over what she knew about the situation. The Rainbow Bridge not properly calibrated. An unstable timeline. Extra-dimensional travel. … Oh hell. She could be anywhere, or anywhen. She briefly considered calling out, "Hello?" The general 'evil scientist lab' vibe of the place made her think twice.

She instinctively reached out for the other two thirds of her mind, her other selves, the partial-gestalt consciousness inhabiting three bodies which were individuals but not, and she felt... nothing. Irma's eyes widened. "Celeste?" she asked. Nothing. "Phoebe?" Nothing.

It felt as though the ground had just opened beneath her feet. She was empty. Incomplete. It felt... she wasn't sure what. It wasn't just 'alone,' but 'alone was close. The Fire was still with her.

Irma Cuckoo shivered.

'OK,' she thought, 'I'm not where I should be. Think.' She did. A minute later, she set out down the corridor,

"Strange," a cold, mechanical voice said, echoing down the corridor. She couldn't quite tell which direction from sound alone, but telepathy revealed the source: a creature. A man. Brainiac. "It should have materialized here like the first," Brainiac said. A pause. "Activate security sweep." His mind vanished from Irma's awareness, and she got a sinking feeling.

Two others. Two other conscious minds. There. Bart Allen. Patty Spivot. Another mind caught her attention. A strange, convoluted thing, full of varying impulses and desires, and far more knowledge than any single mind should ever hold. She didn't immediately recognize it.

Security sweep. She'd had just enough time to process that thought when a red light filled the corridor. Alarms flashed, and then there was the sound of an explosion from somewhere up ahead. She closed her eyes. The fire was there, waiting for her. It always was. It always would be, now.

"Stop where you are," a calm, mechanical voice said from the corridor behind her. When Irma turned, she saw a tall green-skinned alien clad all in black, almost chitinous armor, and set with pink gems which glowed the same color as the glass tubes. There was knowledge, there. Brilliance. A mind like she'd never seen before in all her life, and she could sense his telepathic influence as a gentle pressure against her mental barriers.

"Who are you?" she asked.

Brainiac nodded. "I completely understand." A slight smirk appeared at the corner of his lips. "There are forms to be observed. I am Brainiac, and you are my prisoner. Will you surrender, or shall we engage in the customary contest of wills?"

Irma thought about it. The pressure against her mental barriers grew stronger, but it wasn't threatening them yet. "What do you want with me?" she asked, and wished her sisters were here with her. Together, they were always stronger than any one of them was on her own.

"To study," Brainiac replied. "To learn. Perhaps to dissect. You needn't worry: you may find it unpleasant, but I can keep you alive through the process. You are an anomaly, and your energy signature bears a curious resemblance to another test subject. Perhaps what I learn will be of use to me in the war effort."

"Oh, sure," Irma said. "I always let people dissect me when they ask politely."

"Sarcasm. A common defense mechanism in young humans. How disappointing." Brainiac shifted his stance. "Enough."

The pressure of his telepathic power against her mental shields suddenly surged. It wasn't like a hammer, or like an icepick: it was like the freaking tide. Relentless. All encompassing. If her sisters had been with her, Irma might have been able to stand against it, but without them she had only seconds to decide: embrace the fire within her, or let a stronger telepath break down her shields and gain unrestricted access to her mind. If she took in the fire again, she might not be able to let it go. … But if she didn't, she was dead. Not much of a choice, but it was one, and she made it; the air filled with fire.

* * *

><p>Barry wasn't taking the news very well. "Wait, you're saying this is MY fault? All of it?"<p>

Batman's eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.

"In the original timeline, you learn all this when Professor Zoom resets your, uh, internal vibrations," and God but it felt silly to say that, but Barry nodded like he understood exactly what she meant, so Karen went on. "You were at your mother's grave on her birthday. It was her first since you'd learned that Zoom was responsible for her murder. And you… well, you went to the past, to the day your mother died. You shattered history, and the lives of the people closest to you were put onto paths that followed the cracks."

"I don't remember," Barry said. His face was visibly less burned than it had been ten minutes earlier.

Luke frowned. "Can't you just, uh, reset your vibrations to find out if she's tellin' the truth?"

Flash shook his head. "Not without help. Maybe if I had one of the other users of the Speed Force here."

"Well, it gets worse. There's a woman out there named Pandora. I don't know if she's the original or not, but she's a witch, and her witch-fu is strong. She's trying to take advantage of the situation to reshape history the way she wants it when she interferes right at the moment you're fixing the timeline. It wipes out your entire universe, Barry. There's a new one put in its place, but it's not the same."

"Original timeline?" Batman asked.

Karen nodded. "Uh, yeah. It's hard to explain."

"You're in the comic books," Luke Cage said. "We looked your ass up."

"Yeah," Karen said with a wince, "That."

Batman looked at Luke Cage. "... Comic books?"

Barry shook his head, "Earth Prime. It makes sense. There's a Superboy from there."

Batman gave Barry a dubious look. "If you say so."

"So yeah," Karen said, going with it, since it was easier than explaining the truth. "The information we got from Earth Prime made Power Girl, um, upset. We came here to try to help."

Barry nodded. "I assume she'll be able to confirm all this when we meet her?"

Karen nodded. "Yeah."

"Do you people have any idea how stupid that sounds?" Batman asked.

Karen flushed red, and nodded. "Reasonably good, yeah," she muttered.

Barry shrugged. "Welcome to my life."

"All right," Karen said, "So here's the plan. We're not going to just let this entire world end and be replaced with the old one. We're going to save as much of it as we..."

"No," Batman said, his ever-present scowl growing even more pronounced. "We're not saving this world. We're replacing it with the other one."

"I don't think you understand what you're asking for," Karen began.

"I understand it perfectly. We change things back to the way they're supposed to be. I'll die. Bruce will live."

"Everyone else in the world will die, too."

Batman muttered something angrily, indistinctly.

Luke Cage held up a hand, forestalling Karen's reply. "Think about it, man," he said, "If you want to die, I ain't gonna stop ya, but are you really gonna make everyone else in the world die with you?"

The Flash didn't say anything, but stared down at his own hands.

"You got kids? Either of you?"

Karen shuddered at the thought. "No."

Luke Cage nodded. "Yeah. A little girl."

"What's her name?" Batman asked.

"Danielle," Luke replied.

"Tell me something, Mr. Cage. If you thought it would save Danielle's life, what would you do in my place?"

Luke Cage was silent for a long moment. Then he shook his head a little regretfully and said, "All right, maybe I can understand where you're coming from."

Batman nodded.

"But," Karen began, "maybe there's a way to save the other world without destroying this one."

"Maybe," Batman allowed.

"And if not," The Flash said, speaking up for the first time since he'd been told his role in all this, "If this world is going to be destroyed anyways, we can at least save as many people a we can."

Batman muttered something angry, and then nodded reluctantly. "As long as Bruce is alive at the end of it."

"That much I can promise," Karen said. "The first step is to get in touch with Cyborg."

* * *

><p>Coast City. Less than half an hour from Edwards, and twenty minutes from Fort Rock. Assuming you've got a Green Lantern ring to provide transport and not a car, that is. It was one of the bigger California cities, with more than seven million residents living right up in Sonoma County. Technically, Coast City itself was the more westerly part that actually went right up to Bodega Bay, but people who weren't from the region tended to identify the whole urbanized region that consisted of anything north or west of Petaluma as "Coast City." All of that might have thrown Prodigy, Mercury, Hellion, and Spider-Woman if they'd known more about the California Coast in their home world. As it was, they knew they were in a place that didn't exist back home, but that was good: Booster Gold was supposed to show up in Coast City. Supposedly, he should have a way to keep them from being erased by an unstable timeline.<p>

They'd walked along the highway in full costume for almost an hour to get to the city limits, cars passing every now and again, but otherwise empty. There was military checkpoint ahead, and as they drew near, they could hear the sound of raised voices.

"...and that's another thing!" One guard - a Corporal by the name of Jenkins - was speaking loudly with another guard. "Why does San Francisco get to be called 'The City' all in capital letters like it's the only one around? Coast City has five times their population! We should be The City! Fuck San Francisco!"

"I hear ya, Corporal," Private Pyle said. Neither of them noticed as the group walked by in full costume.

"God damned San Franciscans..."

Private Pyle nodded his agreement.

Corporal Jenkins grinned suddenly. "Hey, you ever wanna piss 'em off? Call it 'Frisco.' They lose their shit."

"Seriously?"

"I shit you not."

Private Pyle laughed, though his voice was a distant thing by now, fading into the background. "I'm gonna have to try that…" he said, and his voice faded beyond the range of hearing. They were through, and there was a noticeable military presence in the streets, and the population seemed subdued and fearful. But when people saw them, they actually seemed to brighten, and some of them smiled. A soldier waved to them with a smile, murmuring something about it being 'good to have some heroes on hand.'

"There's something weird going on here," Prodigy said.

Spider-Woman nodded. "People are on edge. I think they might be expecting an attack. It would explain the military presence "

Prodigy shook his head. "That's not what I mean." He, Mercury, and Hellion exchanged glances.

"Nobody's freaking out," Mercury said, with wonder in her voice, and it was true: people gave the costumed group curious looks, but the hostility that they all but took for granted as mutants... wasn't there. It felt like... _._ "I don't suddenly look normal or anything, do I?" she asked.

Prodigy looked her way. Mercury was the same liquid-metal girl she'd always been. "This is weird," he said.

Spider-Woman looked around and shrugged, and it did incredibly interesting things to her chest that Prodigy very carefully tried not to take notice of. Hellion didn't make any such effort. "Seems normal enough to me."

Prodigy and Mercury looked at each other, and he was suddenly aware of the divide between himself and his teammates. He wasn't a mutant anymore. Not since M-Day. People still treated him like one, though, mostly because of who he kept company with. He'd lost his powers, but people still feared him, still hated him. He knew that. So how the hell did people like Spider-Woman get treated like a totally different class of person by the general public, to the point that she... he ended that train of thought. He was being uncharitable.

"Yeah, but you're not a mutant," Mercury said. She was talking to Spider-Woman, but Prodigy felt it all the same. Some wounds would heal with time. This wasn't one of them. "You wouldn't get it."

Spider-Woman's mask hid her eyes, so Prodigy couldn't actually tell if she'd rolled them or not. "Not everything has to be about your mutant persecution thing," she said.

"_**Excuse me?**_"

Spider-Woman put a hand to her forehead. "Right. Look, all of you just keep an eye out. Depending on the timing, Booster Gold could be here any..." A construction site maybe a hundred yards down the street went up in a spectacular fireball, and all of them felt the shockwave like a thump to the chest. "...minute."

They arrived on the scene just in time to see a figure dressed in blue and gold flying away. Two soldiers were on the ground, and Prodigy wasn't sure if they were unconscious or not. Booster Gold, presumably.

"Hey, wait!" Hellion called.

The figure in blue and gold looked back over his shoulder, and then…

And then a particle beam satellite shot him out of the sky. Booster Gold tumbled head over heels, slammed into a wall, and then landed on the roof of a building nearby.

"All right, kids," Spider-Woman said, "Let's get to work. I'll go see if he's OK. Hellion, make sure they can't hit us with any of those blasts from above. The rest of you, meet us on the roof."

Spider-Woman went up to check on Booster, and Prodigy nodded at Hellion. "Get us up there, then put up your shield, OK?"

"No problem," Hellion said. He lifted himself, Prodigy, and Mercury up to the rooftop in short order. Half a second later, a semi-transparent dome snapped into being above them. A few seconds after that, a second particle-beam struck the shield from above. Light flared, and a dangerous rumble went through the building, but the shield held. A third blast never came.

"Is he OK?" Prodigy asked.

Booster Gold opened his eyes. "Ugh. What hit…" he saw Spider-Woman leaning over him. Spider-Woman, with her long dark hair and a figure that was beyond amazing which her costume only served to emphasize, and what was visible of her face absolutely perfect. "... me. Uh. Hi."

Spider-Woman smirked. "Booster Gold, I presume? You all right?" She held out a hand.

Booster grinned, and gave a thumbs up. "That's me. And I'm always all right." He took her hand, and she pulled him up to his feet.

A little blue and gold drone floated down next to Booster. "Sir, I believe we have arrived in the wrong timeline. We are in an alternate universe."

"I got that, Skeets," Booster said.

"Actually," Prodigy said, "It's worse than that."

Booster raised an eyebrow. "OK, one, who are you people? Two, worse how?"

They told him.

"Ah."

* * *

><p>"My name is Patty Spivot," Patty said. She had short blonde hair, intense blue eyes, a cute face with a pert nose. Her costume was black with a white lightning bolt going down the front, and form-fitting enough to display her slender build. Without her helmet, she looked more like somebody's favorite older sister than a superhero.<p>

"You…" Kid Flash said, "You were the woman with the Reverse-Flash." Kid Flash was a boy perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old. He had short brown hair and striking gold eyes, and was dressed in a yellow and red version of the Flash costume that left his hair exposed.

"I was doing fill-in work at the Central City lab," Patty said. "They asked me to help clean up after the Reverse-Flash trashed the place. I…" She looked down at her helmet. "I decided to do something **bigger** with my life." She held up the helmet. "I don't know how we got here, but according to the data readout inside my helmet, the year is 3011. We're in the fifth century of Brainiac's occupation of Earth, and… he's the only thing standing between Earth and the Black Lanterns."

Kid Flash staggered. "... No… this can't be 3011," he muttered. "I was **born** in the thirty-first century. It wasn't like this. Unless..." he looked up. "Unless something changed the timeline. But if that's true, and I'm locked out of the Speed Force, nothing is protecting me in this new timeline…" He looked thoughtful. "Those chambers Brainiac had us in must have been shielding us from the effects of the time stream while he studied us."

"Makes sense," Patty replied.

"Your bike can travel through time, right?" Kid Flash asked.

"It could, if it had its Speed Force tank."

Kid Flash noded. "Then we've got to find that tank and get back home fast. We're not supposed to be here."

The air grew warmer, and a fiery light could be seen coming down the hallway. Something was coming.

"I'm gonna guess that's a bad thing," Patty said. She hopped onto the cosmic motorcycle. "Get on."

Kid Flash staggered once more. "I…"

There was no warning. One moment, they were talking in relative safety, the next a seven foot tall disturbingly skeletal robot had emerged from a service corridor and opened fire. Heard a noise like an angry hornet as something went past her ear, and then it felt like someone hit her in the shoulder with a sledgehammer. A hot, searing pain went through her, and she went down.

"Patty!" Kid Flash shouted. "Of all the times not to have my speed!" He dove for cover, and she stared at her shoulder in shock. A finger sized hole had been punched clean through her costume, through her shoulder, and out the other side.

The robot leveled its gun at Kid Flash...

And then a blonde teenager surrounded by an aura in the shape of an enormous firebird flew into the room. A finger-thick lance of flame shot out from the palm of her hand and cut the robot in half at the waist before she drew it back across its gun, the touch of the fire rendering whatever alloy the thing was made from into liquid metal instantly. The heat was beyond description, and for a moment, Patty was sure she was going to die. She clenched her eyes shut and looked away, and her face went from normal to moderately sunburned in the space of a second. And then it was gone. The heat was gone.

A blonde teenaged girl in a skin-tight red and gold costume with a gold bird emblem on its chest landed lightly in the middle of the room, next to the rapidly cooling remains of the robot. She looked first at Patty, then at Kid Flash.

"Who are you?" Patty asked, clutching her uninjured hand to her shoulder in an effort to stop the bleeding.

Something exploded in the distance, but the girl didn't flinch. "Call me Phoenix," she said, and extended a hand, not quite able to hide a smirk. "Come with me if you want to live."

* * *

><p>Power Girl appeared in a burst of rainbow colored light ten thousand feet above Metropolis, and she didn't appear alone. Layla Miller appeared in the air beside her, and unlike Peej, she had no power of flight: Layla let out a surprised shriek as gravity took hold.<p>

Power Girl swooped down to grab her before she could get far, and then began the long powered descent to the city below. Metropolis gleamed like a star in the night, light and sound and color of every kind mingling together with the rush of wind, the murmur of city-voices, and the distant thunder of heartbeats. She landed on the roof of the Daily Planet in the middle of downtown Metropolis, walked to the edge of the roof and stared down at the city.

Superman's city.

Monorails glided smoothly on raised tracks. Cars moved with the flow of traffic. The hum of the city was everywhere. She closed her eyes, and she could hear the teenaged couple walking past the Daily Planet building on the sidewalk, hand in hand. She could hear the old man muttering about 'kids these days' under his breath as they passed. She could hear the cat moving in the alley across the way. She could hear the conversations of thousands all around her.

"... and you call me the minute you hear from Lois Lane!" It was the voice Perry White, inside the building.

Power Girl laughed. She'd done it. She was here. She was home. … Almost. Almost home. The 'almost' was all that kept her from crying happy tears there on the roof. She scrubbed at her eyes, and then turned. "We made it," she said.

"Yup," Layla said neutrally. A moment later, she tapped her communicator and spoke into it, got no reply, and frowned.

"OK," Power Girl said, "We're in Metropolis." Power Girl paused as she considered the skyline once more, taking note of the LexCorp building. She blinked. Hadn't Lex Luthor been killed by Krypto in this timeline? A moment's concentration had her peering through the building's superstructure until… there he was, working in his lab, his left arm and right leg obviously mechanical to her super senses, but decidedly alive.

It occurred to her that she could probably enlist his assistance. He'd likely be willing to help if she handled it correctly. And then Power Girl considered carefully all the possible ramifications of going to LexCorp to get assistance from Lex Luthor.

LEX. LUTHOR.

OK. That was a bad idea, and there was no way that wasn't going to end in tears. Power Girl clenched her eyes shut as she got her head in the game. 'Come on, Kara,' she thought to herself. 'You've got a genius level intellect. Try using it instead of just bull-rushing in like you always do.'

She thought about it. The whole situation. Put it all together. Throughout the whole Flashpoint, despite Tara Markov's total betrayal of everything a champion of Earth was supposed to be, there was never any indication that Strata had taken action. There were a few possible reasons for that, and none of them good. Given that Tara Markov had her powers in this reality, Strata had to exist as well, so that wasn't it. She worked it through, her thought processes taking her through the chains of logic in a fraction of the time it would have taken a human.

Power Girl looked up. "We need to find Atlee," she said. She was expecting argument. Resistance. She was expecting Layla to tell her they needed to meet up with the others.

What Layla actually said was, "Okie dokie."

"If she exists here at all, she'll probably be in Strata. There's an entrance nearby, I think, but we'll have to be careful. There's no telling how the Terrans will react to us."

She took Layla into her arms Superman style. "Hold on tight," she said, and took off, heading inland.

Most people would have found that an awkward position to hold a conversation from. Most people, of course, were not Layla Miller. Layla raised an eyebrow and looked up at Power Girl. "OK," she said, "I'll bite. Who are the Terrans, and what's Strata?"

Power Girl raised an eyebrow in turn, mirroring Layla's expression exactly.

Layla sighed. "Reports of my omniscience have been greatly exaggerated.

Power Girl tried not to giggle. When she saw Layla's put-upon expression, she failed in her attempt. It felt good to laugh. "Sorry," she said. They reached the city limits and flew on past, and occasionally people on the ground would notice them and point them out to their fellows.

"Strata is a society that lives in large cave-systems deep beneath the Earth's surface. Terrans are one of several nonhuman races that live in Strata. The Terrans in particular are linked to the Earth and to its sanctity in a way that is difficult for any non-Terran to ever really understand."

"This Atlee girl is a Terran?"

Power Girl nodded. "Right."

"But she looks human?"

"Yeah."

"...'kay."

After that, PG accelerated to the point that it was no longer possible to talk. Mountains sprang up in the distance, growing slowly closer. The land grew less and less populated, sources of light fewer and farther between, but Power Girl knew the way. Their destination was a tiny cave entrance set onto the side of a cliff a hundred feet above barren valley floor where a summer fire had burned away the green.

Still carrying Layla, Power Girl flew through the entrance, made her way through a long, winding, downward sloping passage, and then came to stop just in front of a great black pit in the earth set at the heart of a jagged, dry cave: a hole that went straight down for almost a mile.

There was a soft but clear clicking sound as Layla turned on a flashlight and swept it across the chamber, then onto the hole. She leaned forward and peered down into the pit, shining her light down to illuminate only the tiniest portion of it.

Darkness. Darkness and stone walls, close air and the weight of the mountain above. "Relax," Power Girl said. "I've got you."

They began the descent.

* * *

><p>Santo grimaced, and wiped the non-existent sweat from his brow. He, Sooraya, Josh, and Ms. Marvel had arrived here about ten minutes earlier, and Ms. Marvel'd gone up to do some aerial recon, leaving the three of them on the streets of, he wasn't sure where. None of it looked familiar. It was all gothy and depressing, dingy, dark, and sense of quiet despair filled the air. So Detroit, probably.<p>

Ms. Marvel landed. "This way," she said, and they followed her down a dingy alleyway. There were people here and there, and when they saw Ms. Marvel and Sooraya, they started to come forward, but then they saw him and Josh and stopped in their tracks. Strangely enough, nobody wanted to mess with a giant made out of rock walking alongside a boy with awesome gold skin. Not that he'd ever tell Josh he was jealous, though sometimes he thought about finding a big gold deposit and making a body from it just to show off.

An uncomfortable silence held for a few more minutes, and then he couldn't contain himself any longer. "So," Santo said, "Uh, how about them Yankees?"

"I've never cared for sports," Sooraya said.

"... er, yeah, me neither." Josh added.

Santo frowned. Barbarians. They kept walking, and after few seconds, he broke the silence again. "How about you, Ms. Marvel? You see the Yankees game two days ago?"

Ms. Marvel raised an eyebrow. "The Angels knocked the Yankees out of the playoffs a week and a half ago."

"Well, yeah. It was a rebroadcast. But it was still awesome to watch the Yankees crush the Red Sox!"

Ms. Marvel's eyes narrowed. "You shut your mouth."

"What? They DID. 8-4!"

"And we came back the next game to take the series with a 10-1 victory, Yankee-boy."

Santo blinked. "Wait, you're a..."

Ms. Marvel smirked, and Santo went pale, looking to Sooraya and Josh in alarm. "Try not to freak out, guys, but our Avenger's one of THEM."

"Still don't care about sports," Sooraya said, sounding bored.

Josh ignored him entirely.

Santo kicked a piece of trash in frustration, and it went clattering off into the distance. "This sucks!"

The communicator chirped. "Anyone receiving? This is Luke Cage. Nightwing's with me. Avengers, X-Men, anyone out there?"

The group went silent, and Ms. Marvel tapped her own communicator. "This is Ms. Marvel. I'm reading you. I'm with Rockslide, Dust, and Elixir. What's your position, Cage? Over."

"We're in Gotham, north of the river. You?"

"Gotham," Ms. Marvel replied, "We're about seven blocks west of a run down Yacht club on the north side of town."

Oh. Well, not Detroit, then.

A pause. "You're in Crime Alley. You're gonna want to head east until you hit the," Another pause, "Uh, Robert Kaine Memorial Bridge. There's pedestrian traffic allowed there. We'll have a car meet you there, got it?"

"I read you, Cage. We'll be there. Over and out." Ms. Marvel looked at Santo and the others. "Let's move, people."

* * *

><p>"So just to be clear, we can go back in time if we get ahold of your Speed Force tank?" Irma asked.<p>

Patty nodded. "Without it, my Cosmic Motorcycle is limited to, well, normal motorcycle speeds."

Actually finding the Speed Force tank for Patty's bike proved to be harder than it sounded. Mostly because Brainiac's fortress was filled with hostile robots, and all of them were looking for them. Irma had blown a hole in his mechanical chest and given him third degree burns on the parts of him that were still flesh, and the guy held grudges.

There was a first aid kit in the storage compartment, and before they did anything else, they took care of the hole in Patty's left shoulder. It was a clean wound, it had missed any major blood vessels, and they were able to bring the bleeding under control without too much trouble, but she would need to see a doctor before too long.

The tracker on Patty's bike gave them an idea of where it was, so there was that, at least. They hit the robotic guards hard and fast, Irma burning down two of them with pencil-thin beams of Phoenix-fire even as Patty took down a third with a swing of what looked like a futuristic night-stick. When she hit the huge hulking robot with it, yellow lightning arced across its body, and it went down in a smoking heap.

"We're clear," Kid Flash said. "Is that it?"

The 'that' in question was a glowing orb suspended above a black and purple-black stand that looked like it belonged in Mordor.

When Patty didn't answer right away, Irma glanced her way. She saw what was wrong immediately: pain was flashing through Patty's mind, radiating out from her left shoulder. Patty took off her helmet, let it drop to the ground, and wiped her forehead with the hand on her uninjured arm.

"You ok?" Kid Flash asked.

Patty pressed her lips together into a thin line in order not to wince. "I think I might have overdone it with that swing just now. Give me a minute." She checked her bandages, grimaced, and then glanced towards the glowing yellow orb. "That's it," she said. She tossed the nightstick-device, which stopped in midair and then reformed itself into her motorcycle, with wheels made of speed-force lightning. "Plug it in."

"Uh, how?" Kid Flash asked.

"Just shove it into the back of the motorcycle. The bike will do the rest."

"Right."

Irma picked up Patty's helmet. "So this thing feeds you information, right?" she asked.

Patty nodded. "Yes. It just sort of… well, this is going to sound funny, but it talks to me."

"And it has some kind of time-line monitoring function?"

"That's right."

Irma put the helmet on. "Helmet," she said, "Show me what happened to the timeline."

The world tilted sideways. A thousand images flashed through Irma's eyes all at once. People and places she didn't recognize. Men and women, human and nonhuman, all dressed in green and black costumes with a green and white emblem on their chests. 'Green Lanterns,' her mind supplied. A vast skull-shaped ship descending from the sky. Names came with faces now. Batman stood atop a building in the middle of gotham. Seven figures dashed along within the Speed Force, running all as one. Barry and Bart Allen, Jason Garrick, Jesse Chambers, Wally West, Iris West, Max Mercury… Superman vanished only to be replaced by a sickly looking boy. Wonder Woman conquered all of England. Aquaman waged war upon the surface. The world cracked open like an egg. A blonde woman with cruelty in her brilliant blue eyes stood against a teen girl who had black hair and violet eyes, but otherwise had the same face, the same jaw, the same brow, the same body. Each bore the name of Terra, and the world trembled where they walked. More and more and more, a thousand faces and places and then…

Her eyes opened. She pulled the helmet off her head. Her thoughts were racing.

Patty eased herself onto the Cosmic Motorcycle. "OK," she said, "I'm setting the time engine for the twenty first century."

Irma blinked. "... Wait."

"Hmm?"

"We have a time machine," Irma said..

Patty and Kid Flash paused, exchanged glances. "Look," Patty said, "Setting right what went wrong is one thing, but crossing your own timeline and altering your own past is the best way there is to get erased by paradox, and I'm not going to risk it."

Kid flash nodded in agreement.

Irma smiled. "Don't worry about that. I don't intend to change the past. I just want to arrange a few things for the future. OUR future."

Patty frowned. "We don't really have enough in the Speed Force tank to make more than a trip or two..."

"A trip or two is all I'll need. We've got a minute. Look around. Take anything that seems useful. If anyone hears approaching robots, we leave."

Patty sighed. "Fine."

Five minutes later, with the motorcycle's saddlebags stuffed with loot, the sound of approaching robots sent them running.

"This is a really bad idea," Kid Flash muttered.

"It'll be fine," Irma insisted.

"We could be predestining ourselves to a really horrible end. We could be arranging our own deaths, and then when we go back to actually do it, we'll have no choice because to do otherwise would be a paradox that would be even worse!"

"All I'm doing is getting a few of Brainiac's devices to the person I'm pretty sure knows how to use them best," Irma said.

Patty started the motorcycle, revved it, and drove through the wall and into time. A moment later and a thousand years earlier, the Cosmic Motorcycle reappeared driving down the road of a distinctly 21st century America. And something was exploding in the distance. Several somethings. Every now and again there was a crack like a sonic boom, and... Layla Miller was waiting on corner.

"Hey Layla," Irma called.

Layla waved. "Hey Irma. Hey Kid Flash. Hot Pursuit."

Kid Flash looked at Irma. "Irma, huh?" he asked.

Irma didn't dignify that with a response. What she thought of the name 'Bartholomew' didn't require saying aloud, and she pointedly ignored the fact that Patty's code name was apparently, 'Hot Pursuit.' "How'd you know we'd be here?"

Layla gave Irma a look.

"Right. So, uh, do we give this to you?" She gestured to the Cosmic Motorcycle's saddlebags, stuffed with objects liberated from Brainiac's lab.

Layla shook her head. "I've got a message from you. You told me you need to talk to yourself right away. After that, you better get going. If you're here too long, Power Girl's going to see you, and you said that you left before she got here."

Irma nodded. "Thanks Layla. Tell me I said thanks, too."

"Already did," Layla replied.

"Right."

Making telepathic contact with her future self was one of the strangest things Irma had ever done. It wasn't like joining with her sisters as the Three-in-One. It was more like two mirrors facing each other, reflecting one another to infinity. The presence of the Phoenix shard made it worse, sending out weird vibrations through the whole. There were echoes of herself in herself through herself and mirroring herself to herself through herself and on and on and on, and both of herselves flinched slightly at the contact. She didn't try for a full joining: she was pretty sure that would be a bad idea. But the link was formed.

_*Hey, me. How're things?* Irma asked._

_*Hey, myself." _Irma replied. It was hard to tell which one of them was sending what, even for her. When a mental voice is exactly like your own in every way, things got confusing quickly. Get confusing quickly? One of those.

*_Tell me about it,* _an Irma sent.

*_Let's just get this over with as quickly as we can.* _Irmasent. *_Tell me where to take the supplies we stole from Brainiac.*_

_*OK, first you need to find Booster Gold. He's in Coast City nine hours and fifteen minutes ago. He'll be able to tell you what they are and what they do, so that I'll know what they are and what they do and can tell the others, got it? After that, take them to London bridge. Southern end. Twelve hours from now. I've already told Prodigy and Cyborg to expect you.*_

_*Cyborg?*_

_*Spoilers.*_

_*Why don't you just tell me what they are and what they do?*_

_*Because that's not how it happened.*_

_*... I'm starting to hate time travel.*_

_*This was your idea.* _

_*Yours, too.*_

_*Don't remind me.*_

Irma severed the link. They were gone before Power Girl arrived.

* * *

><p>"Santo, you made it!"<p>

Santo grinned. "Karen, my man!" He clasped her hand, released, fistbumped.

Karen grinned, too. It was hard not to. "Hey Sooraya. Josh. You heard from anyone else yet?"

"Hello, Karen," Sooraya said.

Josh shook his head. "Not so far, but we think the Rainbow Bridge might have scrambled our communications a little."

Karen nodded.

Barry Allen was no longer dressed in a poor man's mummy bandages. It had taken him all of a second to make himself a new costume, and most of the second and third degree burns he'd inflicted on himself with his first failed attempt to access the speed force had now healed: he looked the part of the Flash.

"Flash," Karen said, "These are my friends. The big guy is Rockslide," she gestured to Sooraya, "That's Dust," she indicated Josh, "And that's Elixir. Guys, this is the Flash."

The mutants exchanged glances. "The same guy who…?" Santo began.

"Yeah," Karen said.

The Flash looked slightly uncomfortable, but nodded. "Nice to meet you," he said.

"Nice to meet you," Santo, Sooraya, and Josh echoed.

"This is Ms. Marvel," Luke Cage broke in, gesturing to Carol.

"Flash," Carol said.

"Who's the angry looking guy in the shadows?" Santo asked.

"That's Batman," Cage said.

"Batman, huh? What's his power?"

The shadows seemed to lengthen slightly, and Batman's glowing red eyes fixed upon Santo.

Santo shivered. "Uh, nevermind. I don't think I wanna know."

"We're about to go meet up with Cyborg in Metropolis," Karen said. "He's the guy who's trying to organize the American superheroes."

Ms. Marvel nodded. "Works for me. Let's move."

* * *

><p>Colonel William Conner was having a bad day. Not that it was unusual to have bad days anymore. Seemed like the whole world was going that way lately. Something in the water, he guessed, and then let out a half-hearted chuckle at his own pun. Damn those Atlanteans. Damn them all to hell. They'd been expecting attack for a couple days now, and along comes some bozo in blue and gold flying right into the airspace above Coast City without so much as a warning from any of the radar boys: it was like he had just appeared in midair. Given that the United States didn't actually have any flying heroes, odds were good that he was an Atlantean agent.<p>

And now, this. This… incompetence. William Conner could tolerate many failings in a soldier under his command, but incompetence was not one of them. So he'd stormed into the operations center for the Coast City defense force in order to read the report for himself. Major Finn was the officer in charge of the operations center when he arrived. He was some corn-fed Iowa farm boy turned special forces soldier who looked like he belonged in a recruiting ad and not in the actual Air Force, which grated on Conner's nerves. Wasn't Finn's fault, but it still annoyed Conner something fierce. The incompetence displayed by the people at the checkpoint wasn't Finn's fault, either, but that didn't stop Conner from taking it out of his hide.

"And they just walked in right past the eastern security checkpoint?" Colonel Conner asked. He was in the operations center for the Coast City defenses, they'd been expecting an Atlantean attack, and it had arrived in the form of the flying man in blue and gold: none of the existing American heroes were fliers, and the Amazons would never use a male operative. That didn't leave very many possibilities.

Major Finn nodded. "Apparently so, sir."

Conner's anger was a slow, bubbling sort of thing. "I want the soldiers on duty there in my office as soon as this crisis is over. You as well, Major."

"Sir?"

Conner scowled. "You were the commanding officer for the watch, son."

Finn didn't get angry. Didn't seem to react at all, except to nod. That was a credit to him. "Yes sir," he said.

"Dismissed," Conner said. Then he glanced up at the clock. "Is General Adam ready with Project Six?" he asked.

A dark-haired woman with captain's wings on her uniform nodded. "Yes, sir," she said. "But we've never actually tested Project Six in real combat situation. Is it really ready for this?"

"Captain, Atlantean infiltrators have just met up with a flying Atlantean who just took no damage from a weapon capable of vaporizing entire city blocks. I don't see that we have a choice." Colonel Conner flipped a switch on the control board in front of him and spoke into the microphone beside it. "Tactical, inform General Adam that we're ready for deployment."

* * *

><p>"...so we need some way of stabilizing ourselves against the effects of an unstable timeline," Prodigy said. "We don't belong here, and we'd rather not just stop existing entirely when this universe goes back to normal."<p>

"Huh," Booster said. "Right. OK. I have no idea how to do that."

Hellion frowned. "This is the right guy, isn't he?"

"Uh, you're Booster Gold, right?"

"That's me."

Mercury exchanged glances with the other X-Men present. "Why would Karen send us to this guy if he couldn't…"

"Karen?" Booster asked, interrupting Mercury.

"Yeah," Mercury said. "Karen Zor-L." She looked to Prodigy, "She's not going by 'Starr' anymore, right?"

"Don't think so," Prodigy said.

"You know Power Girl?" Booster asked.

"Her too," Hellion said. "We don't know Kara as well as Karen, though."

Booster blinked. Karen and Kara? "Supergirl's here, too?"

"Who?" Mercury asked.

Booster paused a moment, not really sure what was going on anymore. "Kara Zor-El?"

"What about her?" Mercury asked.

There was movement in the night, though none of those present noticed it. A dark shape all covered in green cloth was coming towards their rooftop in long, bounding leaps.

"Uh," Booster said, "So who's on first?"

The others looked confused.

"Sir," Booster's tiny, floating mechanical companion said, "I have searched my databanks, and I believe I can provide instructions for the manufacture of the devices our new friends require."

"Oh thank God," Booster muttered. "Whatcha got, Skeets?"

"Do you wish me to explain the science, sir?"

Booster thought about it, shuddered, and shook his head. "Magic doohickey that wards off paradox. Got it."

"In essence."

A huge figure covered in green cloth landed on the telekinetic dome with a thud. All eyes went to it even as it reared back its fist and drove it through the barrier. The barrier flashed white, and then burst like a soap bubble, dropping the figure to the roof.

"Shit!" Hellion yelped.

The creature was humanoid, and almost nine feet tall, dressed all in green cloth that covered every inch of its body, but failed to conceal the awful bone-spikes that jutted out of it at its elbows, knees, knuckles, and shoulders. It peered out at the world through two glowing orange lenses affixed to a silver helmet of sorts which swept around to the back of its skull, with tubes reaching down from there to a belt made of the same material. "Freeze," it said, its voice as gravely as if it had been gargling iron filings for an hour.

"No way," Booster muttered, staring at the creature with wide-eyed terror. It was the being he had never wanted to see again. The being that still gave him nightmares. A creature he had fought once before, and which had damn near torn him apart. The creature that had killed Superman.

"Doomsday!"

Then the creature spoke again. "Atlantean agents, by the order of the Surface Defense Protectorate, you are ordered to surrender yourselves."

Everyone on the rooftop froze.

"... You can talk? How?"

The creature seemed to straighten. "My name is General Nathaniel Adam."

Booster blinked. "Nate?"

Then it charged Booster Gold, its ever footstep carving furrows into the roof. He barely managed to evade its punch, and when he hit it back, all he succeeded in doing was tearing the cloth covering the creature's face, revealing bone spikes and grey skin on a face that only looked vaguely human. "I am authorized to negate your threat by any means necessary," it said.

Spider-Woman's venom blast struck the creature, and she might as well not have fired at all.

Without Surge there to lead them, leadership of the New X-Men defaulted to Prodigy, and he went into action immediately. "Hellion, Mercury, battle plan four."

Hellion and Mercury nodded, and that was as far as they got before Booster yelled out, "Don't let it hit you! This thing is the biggest nightmare threat the world has ever seen! If it hits you, you're dead!"

Doomsday smirked, and it looked strangely wrong on the creature's face, as if it were only aping the human expression without actually feeling the emotion behind it. "Surrender or be destroyed."

"This is a mistake," Booster said. "We're not who you think we are. We're not with Atlantis."

"A likely story," General Adam said through Doomsday's lips. This time, his bony spikes struck home as he drove them into Booster Gold's stomach, straining the man's force shield to its limits and sending him staggering backwards.

"Damn it!" Booster Gold yelled.

Mercury struck the beast full in the face with a fist in the shape of a warhammer. Doomsday whirled towards her, growling low and dangerously, but it was operating at human speed, and she was able to react in time to save herself from its returning punch: she shapeshifted a hole into her center of mass where its bony fist would have otherwise connected, and it struck nothing but empty air. Mercury flowed around its fist, literally, her body morphing wildly to avoid contact with its follow-through, and then she was slashing at its eyes with fingers in the shape of blades. She sliced neatly through the lenses of its helmet's goggles, and her blade-fingers scraped savagely against its eyeballs, and against the bone-spikes that grew out around them, and she drew back her hand with a pained hiss and retreated out of melee range.

Her attack did precisely nothing.

Spider-Woman followed up with a kick to the creature's crotch. That, at least, got its attention, and she nimbly avoided its return attack just as Booster Gold blasted it from behind.

"Batter… UP!" Hellion shouted, and sent the thing flying into the air with his telekinesis. It wasn't talking anymore: it was roaring in fury. Up it went a good twenty feet before gravity overcame momentum and it started to come back down. Hellion hit it again, sending it up another twenty feet. Then a thought occurred to him, and he seized Doomsday in his telekinetic grip, holding him immobile in the air a good forty feet above the roof. "So," he said, "This is the biggest nightmare threat the world has ever seen, huh?"

Doomsday roared, flailing its arms in midair, growing angrier by the moment.

Hellion grinned, and set the monster to tumbling head over heels in midair even while it hung helpless. "Big bad Doomsday," he said. "Not so big now, are you?"

"Uh," Prodigy began, "Hellion, maybe you shouldn't make him mad like that."

"The hell are you doing!?" Booster yelled. "Get rid of him! Knock him into orbit if you can! Send him flying as far as you can! You've probably only got seconds until he evolves a countermeasure to your…!"

Doomsday roared in triumph: there was a flash of light, and it fell free from Hellion's telekinetic grip.

"... powers," Booster finished.

"Oh, crap," Prodigy, Mercury, and Hellion all said at the same time.

* * *

><p>They flew through sightless caverns and empty places, and only the feeling of the wind of their passage and the warmth of Power Girl's body told Layla she was alive at all. Their pace had slowed, and several times they had to crawl on their bellies to squeeze through terrible narrow passages in the rock, lit only by Layla's flashlight, in order to access deeper, darker caverns beyond where creatures dwelt which had never known the sun. Kara seemed to know the way, seemed not to need the flashlight, even. But even here, in the roots of the world, not all was dark, not all was sightless. In time, Layla became aware of a faint light in the distance - a ghostly blue that cast strange shadows down the widening tunnel. Kara seemed to tense, and her pace quickened.<p>

The tunnel sloped downwards, and they flew down it for several minutes as the light grew brighter around them and the sound of running water grew in the distance. Then, all at once, they reached the bottom, and the tunnel opened into a vast cavern with mushrooms the size of buildings, each of which glowed with a gentle blue light. The cavern walls were different here - too smooth to be natural. Water flowed through the cavern in a gentle river lit from beneath with beds of glowing fungus. Buildings grown from the rock stood at regular intervals, usually beside unfenced fields now grown verdant with glowing plants of every description save leafy. Kara and Layla stood at the beginning of a well maintained road, leading through the mushroom forest and to a great rocky gate set into the far cavern wall, perhaps a mile distant.

"This is Strata?" Layla asked, staring about it wonder.

"Part of it," Kara replied. "Atlee showed me around, once. This is where they grow a lot of their food." She looked around. "But there should be people here."

As she looked upon the gate in the distance, it occurred to Layla that she could hear the distant sounds of battle, muffled but still audible. The occasional incredibly faint, distant scream. Rumbles that could have been explosions. Tremors in the earth.

"... I'm probably worrying for no reason," Kara said. "I'm sure everything's fine. We'll find her, you'll wake up her memories. We'll leave."

Layla shivered in Kara's arms as they flew ever closer to the gate. There was a guard station which had been hastily abandoned further up. Someone's meal stood abandoned but still warm.

"That would work better if I didn't know for a fact that your super-hearing means that you were probably hearing the screaming and the sounds of explosions and tremors in the earth ten minutes before I could."

Kara nodded as she landed in front of the gate. She set Layla down on her feet. "Yeah," she said, "Probably. You ready?"

Layla nodded.

Kara pushed open the gate.

A terrible orange light blazed beyond. The great city of Strata was one of the wonders of the modern world, seemingly grown from the living rock itself, its sweeping columns and spirals and great towers and shining courtyards carved as water carves, with no sign other than its presence and obvious design that ever a tool was pressed to stone. Deceptively delicate aqueducts brought water to every level of the city, and shockingly green of trees were planted in regular intervals along the walkways. Light there was like unto natural sunlight, reproduced here through the technology that was the legacy of the Astronaut God from whom the underground races had sprung. Groves of trees and fungus and vines and many other plants were scattered here and there upon platforms that seemed too delicate to support their own weight. Normally, the walkways would be crowded with Terrans and members of the other races who called Strata home. But not today.

Screams and the sounds of battle flowed freely through the open gate: the city of Strata was on fire. Demons ran loose through the street, slaying all they encountered with wild abandon. The very cavern walls seemed to boil as elemental spirits gone mad poured out of them, sending terrific gouts of flame, water, magma, gusts of wind, and sprays of icy shards in all directions at random intervals. A few powered individuals struggled against that tide, and in the midst of the fray, a lone human-seeming girl with black hair and violet eyes commanded the very rock itself against her enemies as she fought a losing battle to save her city from an all out demonic invasion.

Layla took all this in with wide eyes, and said the only thing that could be said: "Oh, crap."

* * *

><p>The Cosmic Motorcycle shot out of the time-stream and went straight into the wall of a building. Irma had just enough time to recognize the danger she was in. Her heart leaped up in her chest, and then… then they were driving up the wall. Driving. Vertically. Up the wall.<p>

That she was able to keep a calm exterior throughout the experience was a credit to her, though no less would be expected of a daughter of Emma Frost.

"According to my helmet's sensors," Patty said, "Booster Gold should be around here somewhere."

They reached the top of the building just in time to see Hellion take a punch from Doomsday. He was able to deflect most of the force by angling his telekinetic shield, but enough go through that he was knocked senseless. Spider-Woman was breathing hard and backing away, Prodigy was hanging back further down the roof, and Mercury was in the process of dodging just a little bit too far when she was already at the roof's edge. She evaded the creature's follow-up to the punch that sent Hellion sprawling, and plummeted from the roof.

Booster Gold let out a curse and dove off the roof after her, put on speed, and caught her just before she would have hit the ground.

"This isn't working!" Mercury shouted even as Booster deposited her back on the roof.

"Everyone can relax," Kid Flash called, "Cavalry's here!"

Doomsday turned to face the new threat.

"Irma!" Prodigy called. "Don't let it touch you! It's as strong as the Hulk!"

Irma's eyes widened, and Patty tried to alter course, but by that time it was too late: the creature's fist hit the Cosmic Motorcycle. The vehicle discorporated into lightning, which quickly reformed into what looked like a futuristic glowing nightstick that clattered across the roof. Irma, Kid Flash, and Hot Pursuit were sent flying.

Even as he tumbled through the air, Kid Flash's eyes widened. On the other side of the country, in Gotham City, Barry Allen became the Flash once more, became the Speed Force conduit, and when he did, the power flowed back to all the others once again. For a moment, a lightning symbol seemed to be imprinted upon Kid Flash's golden eyes."The Speed Force," he whispered. "It's back!"

He blurred, and a millisecond later, he and Hot Pursuit were standing on the roof, completely unharmed.

Irma twisted her body, applied some of the telekinesis she had gained along with her Phoenix-shard, arrested her momentum, and landed as gracefully as if she had planned the impromptu dismount from the beginning.

"All right, people. We need a plan, here. Irma, what do your new friends bring to the table?"

"I'm the fastest teen alive," Kid Flash said proudly.

"... Right," Prodigy replied, a dubious look on his face.

Booster Gold had engaged Doomsday once more, though he was able to trade blows with the creature, his suit's force-field was getting dangerously depleted, and it showed in the increasing look of panic in his eyes.

"Fine," Kid Flash said, "I'll SHOW you." He blurred and then reappeared twenty feet away from Doomsday. Lightning crackled around him, and Doomsday slowed. Slowed. Stopped in mid-punch. The creature seemed frozen where he stood, unable to move, unable to act, unable to do _anything._

Booster Gold staggered backwards. "Just need to… catch my… breath."

Then there was an awful sense of building **pressure** as Speed Force lightning gathered around Kid Flash. Then he shot forward, the air visibly distorting around his fist. Then he was gone beyond the range of human perception, and all the others saw was a flash of light and an horrific boom of thunder as Kid Flash achieved relativistic velocity and hit Doomsday with an Infinite Mass Punch.

Doomsday vanished across the horizon.

Kid Flash stood directly in front of where the creature had been, his fist still extended. He drew it back slowly, savoring the moment, then turned to face the others with a grin.

Everyone who wasn't Booster Gold or Patty Spivot stared at Kid Flash in utter astonishment.

It was Prodigy who found his voice first. "What the hell was that?"

"Well," Kid Flash said, "First I used the Speed Force to bleed off all his kinetic energy, and then I channeled the Speed Force's extra-dimensional energies to impart the relativistic mass of traveling near the speed of light to my blows. It lets me hit with the force of a white dwarf star."

"What."

Kid Flash looked around, feeling a little uncomfortable at the reactions of those present. "What?" he asked.

"You punched him at nearly the speed of light?" Prodigy asked.

Kid Flash nodded.

"How did your fist not turn into a thermonuclear blast?"

"Uh, why would it do that?"

Prodigy's eyebrow twitched slightly. "Because it's moving at NEARLY THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Every air molecule between you and your target should have been fusing with your hand."

Kid flash blinked. Then he thought about it. "Speed Force?"

"What."

Kid Flash shrugged.

Irma frowned, and briefly waved her hand in front of Prodigy's face. "I think you broke him," she said, and when he shot her an annoyed look, she winked at him.

Hellion coughed, tried to pick himself up off the roof, and stopped short with a pained wince. "Ugh," he muttered, "Think I might have broken a rib." He looked up. "Hey, uh, Celeste."

"It's Irma," Irma said.

"Irma," Hellion confirmed.

Prodigy shook his head, and then looked at Hellion. "You OK, man?"

Hellion coughed again, winced again. "Been better."

"Uhuh. Now what important lesson have we learned today?"

Mercury helped Hellion to his feet, he coughed a third time, and then he managed, "... Don't taunt the nice Doomsday monster when you've got it at your mercy and should be getting rid of it."

"Exactly."

Hellion glanced sidelong at Mercury. "You know what I miss?" he asked.

"What's that?"

"Bad guys in our own weight class," Hellion said. "Remember when we used to fight bad guys who couldn't really do worse to you than break an arm, or maybe blast you with ice-beams or something?"

Mercury looked a little wistful at that. "Good times," she said.

"Good times," Hellion agreed.

* * *

><p>Atlee fought at the heart of the storm. Not for her own life, but for the lives of every citizen of Strata. Failure was unacceptable, and that meant that failure was impossible. It was as simple as that in her mind. She had to win, and so she would. There wasn't any other choice. She would stop these creatures, and that was all there was to it. With a gesture, she rent apart a hostile being made of rock and magma and sent its shards spraying into a host of lesser demons. The magma did not trouble them, but the rock pierced each of them in a dozen places. They fell, and did not rise. A moment later, a demon-summoned blast of magma took her on the left side and knocked her over, but otherwise seemed not to harm her. "I really hate magic!" she muttered. "I really, REALLY hate magic."<p>

The few other empowered Stratans were somewhere behind her. She couldn't see them anymore. There were too many demons. Too many maddened elementals. Her breath was labored now, and for all that she could clear the streets in front of her with a wave of her hand and a surge of earth and stone, another wave of demons replaced the first almost as quickly as she could crush them.

She had to get to the sorcerer. He was the one controlling all of this. Directing all of this. He was somewhere ahead - she caught glimpses of him from time to time. All she needed to do was…

A blast of hellfire sent her scrambling for cover and disrupted her train of thought. She sent horrible shards of stone, each several hundred pounds and sharpened to needle-points all in a volley after the source of the hellfire, and was rewarded by a bellow of rage. She grinned fiercely and pressed her attack, putting a shell of stone between herself and a magical blast of concussive force that shattered it. She took the opportunity to send its fragments into the demonic ranks at gunshot-speed. A shadow passed over her, and she had time to duck before a hell-wrought scythe passed through the space her head had only just evacuated. She spun, came up on the balls of her feet, and swung her fist at the sword-wielder; rock gathered to her fist as she did, and when she struck the red-skinned, black-armored scythe-wielder with his heavy roman-style helmet, she hit him not with her own flesh, but with an enormous stone fist that weighed nearly a ton by itself.

He was rocked back on his heels, but he recovered with far more speed than was fair. A wave of his hand sent the rock flying backwards away from her. "Foolish girl," he said. "You stand before Lord Satanus of Hell. Surrender, and I may-" and that was as far as he got before she summoned a wave of stone and magma to crush him like a bug. She poured on the pressure, building force upon force until the deceptively liquid-behaving stone she wielded against him began to crumble and crack from the forces being exerted by it and upon it.

There was a flash of red light accompanied by the smell of brimstone, and rock exploded out from the demon in a blinding rain. The demon towered over Atlee, glaring down at her.

"Sorry," she said with a smirk. "I keep forgetting. This is the part where you monologue at me. Continue."

"I may not have access to my full power under these binding, but I have more than enough to-" and she crushed him beneath another torrent of rock.

When he emerged again, it was with a furious roar and a swipe of his scythe that came too quickly for her to react to. She was dead. She was SO dead.

A hand struck the flat of the scythe hard enough to send cracks throughout its frame and swatted it away. Then there was a blur, and something struck the demon with the force of a runaway train. It went flying backwards into the cavern wall. Twenty FEET into the cavern wall.

Atlee looked up. A teenaged girl was floating there clad all in red, white and blue, younger than she remembered but still recognizable, and her heart leaped at the sight. Before this moment, Atlee had been half-convinced that she'd only dreamed of the surface, of the Justice Society, and of… "Power Girl," she breathed.

* * *

><p>Gotham looked different from the rooftops. The glow of city lights seemed to fill everything. The sound of the wind was omnipresent, and the vast shapes of zeppelins moving above the city, docking with skyscrapers, lent a strange and ghostly feeling to the skyline. He was waiting for them on the roof of one of the many Wayne casinos, beside the mooring mast where his airship had docked. It was raining, and the scent of petrichor had replaced the more normal and less pleasant smells of Gotham city.<p>

"I have to admit," Cyborg said as the group approached, "I didn't expect your call." He was a tall black man, broad shouldered and handsome, and the left side of his face had been replaced with gleaming metal and a glowing red eye. He was covered in armor, all shining steel over a flexible, matte black underarmor that protected his joints.

"Vic?" Flash asked. "You look… broader. Taller."

Cyborg glanced at Flash. "Have we met?"

"My name is Barry Allen," Flash said, "But…"

"You've never met," Batman broke in. "He's new to Gotham. Super-speed. Goes by the name The Flash."

The others introduced themselves in turn. Elixir, Dust, Rockslide, Miss Marvel, and good God but it felt weird for Karen to stand in front of the goddamn Batman and say, "You can call me Nightwing." If this had been Bruce Wayne and not Thomas, she was pretty sure she wouldn't have had the nerve.

Now that she thought about it, Thomas Wayne's Gotham DID seem a lot more Frank Miller than the normal one did. Maybe… no. She stopped that train of thought in its tracks, took it out back, and shot it in the back of the head, execution style. That way madness lay.

"All right," Cyborg said. "We know each other's names. Now, why are you here? What do you want from me?"

Karen glanced at the others and opened her mouth to speak. "It's…" another voice cut her off even as she began - a resonant, powerful male voice, and filled with the strength of its convictions, and a willingness to do what must be done, no matter the cost. Karen looked up to the voice's source and nearly choked.

"They are here for the same reason that I am here, Victor Stone of Earth," Thaal Sinestro said as he descended from the sky to land amongst the assembled heroes. "They have learned of the Flashpoint, and they are here to save the universe."

END CHAPTER 09

* * *

><p>Author's note: The chapter was getting unmanageably large (I had reached 20k words and counting), and I figured it was better not to keep people waiting for such a long time between updates, so I divided it into two parts. This is the first. Unfortunately, this also meant that most of the scenes with Karen or Kara in them got pushed to the next part. Oh well.<p> 


	23. DU: Scattered, Part II

"I'm here," Power Girl said. The words hung in the air, and even in the midst of raging battle, the whole world seemed to pause for a moment of perfect stillness. Hope rekindled in Atlee's heart. Then the press of battle swept round them again, and there was no more time for words.

The arrival of Power Girl on the battlefield in the underground realm of Strata was like the coming of a god; her breath froze the enemy solid in its tracks; the heat of her gaze burnt scores of them to cinders; and every blow she landed slew a footsoldier in the demonic army, and with Atlee at her side commanding the very Earth itself, it seemed as though the tide had turned.

But the sorcerer who commanded this force knew his business, and rather than throw his summoned troops into the meat-grinder that was the combined power of Terra and Power Girl, he raised his hand. The demons and elemental spirits halted. The battlefield fell silent. And then someone began to clap. Slowly. Unhurriedly. No one joined. A cloaked figure emerged from the ranks of the demon army. A barrier flickered around him, protecting him from harm. "Impressive," he murmured. Then, in a louder voice, "Most impressive. Individually you are each dangerous, to be sure, but as a pair, who can match your might? Even so, you shall not prevail here, Kara of Atlantis."

"You know me?" Kara asked.

"Indeed," the sorcerer replied. "And you know me. You have chosen such interesting allies. The god-blooded champion of the Earth, the little Romani witch." He glanced towards the pile of rubble that stood a good twenty feet from the battle lines, behind which Layla had hid herself.

Kara blinked, and glanced towards Layla. "Romani witch?" she mouthed.

Layla's only reply was a mystified sort of shrug, as if to say, 'I have no idea what he's talking about' without actually saying it.

Kara frowned. "Who are you?" Atlee followed her question a moment later with, "Why are you attacking us?"

The sorcerer looked Kara in the eye. "You do not recognize your own grandfather? How very disappointing." He cast back his cloak; he was a regal man, his every feature etched with nobility. He was tall, white haired and brown eyed, his face unlined and clad in such finery as was scarcely seen in the modern world, and he wore a red gemmed amulet around his neck. "I am Arion the Immortal!" he cried. "Lord of Atlantis, Sorcerer Supreme, Intercessor of Darkworld. From the dawn of time have I tread this earthly coil, standing before the raging evil of Garn Daanuth, Chaon and the Lords of the Seven Hells! Though I am loathe to intervene in the mortal world, I cannot allow this Flashpoint to pass unaddressed. This place must be purged - every trace of the Astronaut God must be purged - if the universe is to be saved."

Kara's eyes widened. Arion. Ahri'ahn the Immortal. The man who had taken her into his family, who had protected her after she'd fallen through the cracks of reality in the wake of the destruction of the multiverse. She hadn't remembered her true self; she'd honestly believed herself to be Kara of Atlantis, granddaughter of Arion the Immortal. She'd believed the lie. She'd believed it until the Psycho-Pirate had shown her the truth. Even then, she'd had doubts until Kal-L and Lois and Superboy Prime and Alexander Luthor had returned and her true memories had been restored. But this man, this version of Arion didn't seem to be aware of the fiction. "Why?" she asked. "Why must this place be purged?"

"The god-blooded are individually dangerous in the best of times, but here beneath the Earth's surface waits an entire civilization touched by Celestial blood. They are a malignancy. A cancer waiting for the chance to spread. Worse, they resist the transformation of the timeline when the alterations _must_ occur if the universe is to be saved."

"You're working for Pandora." It wasn't a question.

Arion's eyes flashed dangerously. "Where did you hear that name? No matter. Stand aside, granddaughter. The purge must continue."

Power Girl shook her head. "You know I can't do that."

Arion nodded gravely. "So be it."

* * *

><p>Destination Unknown<p>

by P.H. Wise

A Power Girl Crossover Fanfic

Chapter 10: Scattered, Part 2

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is owned by Fran and Kaz Kuzui. Some of the text of this chapter is taken from the Flashpoint comic series. I don't own that, either. I also don't own The Hollow Men. That's T.S. Elliot.

* * *

><p>There was no signal when battle resumed, but every combatant seemed to recognize it when it happened nonetheless. A moment of perfect stillness, broken only by the sound of a little Terran girl calling for her mother. Then the demonic host surged forward once more, and the battle for Strata resumed. For a few panicked seconds, it was all Power Girl could do to keep the monsters off of Terra. She lost sight of Layla. The girl wasn't at the rubble pile anymore, and she couldn't spare the attention to search for her. Power Girl slew lesser demons with abandon, and as they fell, their false bodies discorporated with a smell like brimstone and sulfur as they returned to the Hell they had been summoned from. Then the two heroes began to press forward, driving into the heart of the demonic mob.<p>

And then they were through. Arion stood in an area clear of all demons, and another cloaked figure stood at his side.

The chamber fell silent once more. The demons hesitated. The other defenders, further back in the chamber, took the opportunity to regroup, and to ferry more Stratans to safety.

"Very well, Kara," Arion said. "You leave me no choice. I shall deal with you myself."

"I'm warning you, Arion," Power Girl said. "Take your army and leave. I've been holding back, but I don't think I can keep doing that if you continue to threaten innocent lives."

Arion laughed contemptuously. "Holding back? Child. The source and the scope of your abilities are well known to me. You never sought to learn the mysteries of magic. You never saw fit to expand your power beyond the blessings I myself placed upon you in your mother's womb. You cannot best me."

"Maybe she can't by herself," Terra said, "But she's not alone."

Arion's gaze met Terra's, and he snarled. "We shall see, god-blood."

Power Girl blurred forward, and bounced off a shield that snapped into existence three feet in front of Arion's form. He spoke a few words in a language that Power Girl could only assume was Atlantean as a circle of spinning arcane symbols appeared beneath his feet, and by the time he'd done so, she'd hit his shield three more times, weakening it with each impact. Then Arion thrust out his hand, discharging a blast of magical energy the size of a school bus directly into Power Girl's face. The blast flung her into the wall of the chamber with the same force she'd struck Satanus with, yet instead of cratering against the wall, the very rock itself seemed to cushion her fall, reacting like foam rubber rather than like a more solid surface. 'Terra,' she realized.

Under Terra's influence, the rock propelled her back at her foe like a sprung coil, but by then he had completed another spell, and a dozen black spheres surrounded by golden lightning bombarded her from above. Power Girl went into a dive, sweeping down towards the region where, under the direction of Arion's fire elementals, a magma flow had broken through the wall of the chamber and was flowing down in a waterfall of fire. The spheres followed on her heels like bloodhounds. Convection that would have killed a human troubled her not at all: she vanished into the steam of the magma-fall hitting water, reversed course, and shot straight up behind Arion and let loose with a tornado-force gust of her own breath.

He had anticipated the move: his barrier was already up, and she flew directly into a second school-bus sized blast of magical energy which smashed her into the wall. Terra wasn't able to soften the impact this time: she had a swarm of spheres of her own to contend with. Power Girl hit the wall with tremendous crack, cratering it for twenty feet around her body. Then the lightning-encased black spheres hit her in a staccato machine-gun pattern, each hammering agony such that she had rarely felt before into her body.

The ground beneath Arion tried to swallow him: a word rendered it calm again. Missiles of stone flew at him, and even as they did, Power Girl let loose with her heat vision, not trying to kill him so much as to distract him. She did neither: his barrier reacted to the heat-beam as if it held some kind of pre-programmed subroutine. The moment her beam struck it, it _shifted_, and then sent the beam right back into her eyes.

Power Girl let out a pained scream and fell, clutching her eyes in agony. She couldn't see. Where was Atlee? Where was Layla? She rubbed at her eyes, and struggled to open them. Pain. Pain and a blurry, funhouse mirror distorted Strata. She'd done this before: she'd be fine in a few minutes. But a few minutes were not a luxury she had. Terra screamed, and Power Girl couldn't tell what had happened. "No," she muttered. "This isn't how it goes..."

Arion spoke, and bindings of golden light snapped into being around her wrists and ankles, holding Power Girl fixed in place. "This is the only way it could have gone, granddaughter. You made a noble effort, but it's over now."

"Like hell..."

Arion laughed. "You are beaten, girl. Your friend fares no better than you." He gestured, and Terra's similarly bound form floated into Power Girl's distorted view. "Arion the Immortal will not be defeated by an untrained whelp and her god-blooded sidekick. The very idea is laughable."

And that was when Layla Miller completed her spell, empowering the binding circle she had been creating in a great arc around Arion's position in the center of what had once been a great courtyard of Strata. Lines of energy sprang up, tracing the bare bones design of the circle and flaring violently as Arion's magic suddenly failed him, and the link to his army ceased to exist. The link to their summoner was broken, and without his power to give them substance, the false bodies manifested by the summoned demons could not endure: each of them vanished in a flare of angry red light, and all of Strata stank of brimstone.

"That was foolish, witch," Arion said. "You may have dismissed my army, but you have also revealed yourself, and so wrought your own doom!"

But Layla had not been idle. Even as Arion monologued, she was working a second spell. It took all of her magical reserves to pull it off, but she managed it, and as she completed the spell, the bindings holding Terra and Power Girl in place dispersed into smoke.

"No!" Arion yelled, immediately focusing his power on Power Girl. For Kara, it felt like flying through jello as the air seemed to harden around her, slowing her down, forcing her to use more and more effort just to keep going. The bindings snapped into place around her wrists and ankles once more, and Arion allowed himself the luxury of a relieved sigh.

Terra cold-cocked him with a fist encased in stone. His concentration was shattered, and the bindings around Power Girl vanished..

Arion fell to his knees, coughing and shaking his head fiercely. "Well... fought," he managed after some effort. "But I... did not... come here... alone."

Kara raised an eyebrow, and Terra glanced to where the various demons and elementals had once stood. "We got that," Terra said.

"I think he means he brought backup," Layla said, her voice thick with fatigue. "Besides demons." She gestured to the cloaked figure who had avoided the fight thus far.

Arion let out a pained chuckle. "Behold, Kara of Atlantis. Who better to defeat you than the offspring of your womb? Who better than..."

The cloaked figure threw off his concealing cloak, revealing a blonde man dressed in Atlantean armor. He had blue eyes, a lantern jaw, truly strange thin lips, gums that showed more than they should when he spoke, and cheekbones that you could grate cheese on. "EQUINOX!" he bellowed.

Terra blinked, looking from Kara to Equinox and back. "... offspring of her womb?" she echoed incredulously.

Power Girl looked confused. "Who?" she asked.

"It is I, mother!" Equinox boomed. "Your son! Though admittedly you are considerably younger today than you were when you bore me, and I find this extremely confusing!"

Kara stared at the strange blonde man, trying to recall any feeling of recognition, any memory that might tell her whether or not this was the truth. All she managed to feel was completely baffled. "Not ringing a bell."

Arion almost looked hurt. "... It's Equinox. Your son. Born in accordance to prophecy to serve as the key to the war between light and dark."

"Indeed!" Equinox boomed. "I am called to a higher path! The chosen Great-Grandson of Arion shall be the deciding factor in the GREATEST OF CONFLICTS!"

"And has no inside voice," Layla snarked tiredly.

Power Girl thought about it. Some of her memories from the time immediately after the Crisis on Infinite Earths was admittedly fuzzy, but what Arion was claiming never happened, and to be honest? The very idea of it kind of pissed her off. "Yeah," Power Girl said, "I have no idea what you're talking about. Let me make something perfectly clear, old man. Completely leaving aside the fact that I'd never in a million years let someone use me like that, even if there was some prophecy about 'the great grandson of Arion the Immortal,' that grandson could never come from me. You're NOT my grandfather, and I'm not Atlantean. I'm Kara Zor-L, Kryptonian, and you can go to Hell." She glanced at Terra. "Terra?"

"Blast em?" Terra asked.

Power Girl nodded. "Blast em."

A gust of Power Girl's frost-breath froze Arion and Equinox's feet in place. A moment later, Terra's rock-bombardment delivered them into unconsciousness.

The last rumble of combat faded. And then the cheers began. Sudden and raucous, every Stratan lent their voice to their gratitude for being saved from the purge. Then they were all clapping, too, and Terra, Power Girl, Layla Miller, and the few surviving city defenders were surrounded by the adoring public. Terra hugged her fiercely, and she hugged back as hard as she dared.

"Everyone thought you were dead," Terra whispered, and Power Girl could only hear her because of her enhanced sense of hearing.. "I thought I'd never see you again."

"I missed you, too," Power Girl said, and a sudden surge of emotion went through her; like coming home after years away; like waking up after a months-long sickness and finding yourself unexpectedly well, walking outside into the dew-lit morning a day once again full of promise. Gratitude and joy were only the tiniest parts of it, and wholly inadequate words to encompass the feeling. Her heart swelled, and her eyes glistened with tears. "I didn't mean to go away."

"Where were you?"

Power Girl shook her head. "I… it's a long story. A really, really long story." She gestured to the fallen Arion and Equinox. "Will Strata be able to hold them?"

Terra nodded. "We'll fit them with neural-suppressors. It'll make them sleep until the crisis is over, one way or another."

"Good." Power Girl hesitated. "Atlee…"

"I know. You want to know why I still remember you, and the world before everything changed, right?"

Power Girl nodded.

"All of us Stratans, Terran and non-Terran alike, were born from the blood of the Astronaut God, Kara. The old records tell us he was a god of the Third World, though his name was lost to history. That means a lot of things, but one of them is that it's hard for changes to the timeline to affect us. One of the elders said it was because we have, um, time inertia. Or something."

Power Girl hugged Atlee again. "Well," she said, "I'm glad you do."

"Us too. Whatever's happening on the surface world right now is completely insane. The whole Earth is angry because of it."

Power Girl nodded. Layla managed to make her way over to the other two, the applause finally tapering off, and Power Girl looked her way. "OK," she said, "Spill. When did you learn sorcery?"

"That's complicated," Layla replied.

Power Girl gave her a look. "Layla," she began.

Layla rolled her eyes. "Ten years in the future, a year from today."

Power Girl blinked, her mind immediately making the necessary connections. "Oh. My sympathies."

"What?" Terra asked. "I don't get it?"

"Time travel," Power Girl said.

Terra winced. "Oh." She looked to Layla. "Mine, too."

"Thanks," Layla said with a flat tone.

Terra changed the subject. She looked at Power Girl. "You had mystical pregnancy?" she asked.

Power Girl looked positively squicked by the thought. "Pretty sure I didn't," she said. "I think I'd remember something like that."

Terra shrugged. "Guess you'd know."

They turned, then, the three of them, towards the administrative center of Strata, and the Stratan peoples sang for joy upon the walkways, the squares, in the gardens, and on the streets of the city; voices which had been raised in terror and pain and anguish now lifted in song, for the enemy had been defeated, and their salvation was at hand.

* * *

><p>The boy strikes it, and the creature knows pain. Its trajectory would take it out into the vast cosmic dark were it not for the mountain range in the way. It plows through a hundred feet of rock near Donner Pass and keeps going. Radar tracks its position as it moves across the United States at hypersonic speed, but no longer at escape velocity. He passes over the dead land, the cactus land, and all below are raised stone images.<p>

The link to General Adam is severed over Donner Pass, and round the prickly pear, prickly pear, prickly pear, here we go round the prickly pear at five o'clock in the morning.

It knows not where it lands. The name of Quebec City would be meaningless to the creature, as would any concept of 'city limits.' A funny old man comes to investigate, and the creature ushers him into the twilight kingdom.

There, on the outskirts of Quebec City, the creature sniffs the air. It knows nothing of conception, nor creation, emotion or response, desire or spasm, potency or existence, essence or descent. It knows nothing of endings, bangs, or whimpers.

But it knows its prey, and before it begins to bound away southwards, towards where it can sense living Kryptonians, each great leap covering the span of miles, the creature utters the word, "Meh-trop-lissss…"

The old man's corpse gives no reply.

* * *

><p>"Sinestro!" Karen and The Flash said with the same tone of shocked recognition, then exchanged glances, then looked back to the Green Lantern. The rain continued without pause.<p>

Sinestro raised an eyebrow. "Have we met?" When both of them hesitated, he nodded in understanding. "Ah. I take it you have encountered my counterpart in the prior timeline."

"You could say that," The Flash said.

"Thaal Sinestro," Cyborg said. "We've had very positive experiences working with Abin Sur. It's good to know another Green Lantern is on hand. Will you be working with Mr. Sur?"

Sinestro shook his head. "Abin has been recalled to Oa on a matter of some urgency. I have been sent to pick up where he left off."

"You're here to help us?" Karen asked incredulously.

"Is it so hard to believe?" Sinestro asked.

"Frankly," Flash said, "Yes."

Cyborg frowned. "That's enough," he said. The Green Lanterns have been nothing but helpful to the people of Earth. I won't have you insulting one without cause."

Karen gave Cyborg an 'are you crazy?' sort of look. "But he's..."

"I said that's enough."

Karen broke off and exchanged another worried look with the Flash, and not for the first time wished she'd been more of a comics nerd than she was. Green Lantern had never been something she'd spent much time reading - as Xander, she'd been more of a Superman fan, though that extended out to the rest of the Superman family as well. She knew the basic Green Lantern information, of course. Hal Jordan was the hero, except when the hero was, uh, Kyle something? But Sinestro was the villain. Not **a** Green Lantern villain. **The** Green Lantern villain. Though she was pretty sure he was a yellow lantern or something, which he obviously wasn't in this timeline. Maybe he wasn't so bad here?

… Yeah, that wasn't convincing even in her internal monologue.

"All right," Cyborg said, "You're here to save the universe. Spill the details."

With yet one more look in askance to Sinestro, they told him. When they were done, Cyborg raised an eyebrow. "You got any proof of this?"

"There is a prophecy," Sinestro began.

"Proof that doesn't involve prophecies," Cyborg said. Sinestro's jaw tightened at that, but he nodded and fell silent. Cyborg continued, "You say you've got Lois Lane. She's working for me. Can you bring her here?"

"In fact," Karen said, "We can." She reached for her nonexistent pockets. Oh, right. She'd had to go with the costume Power Girl gave her. The one that showed way more skin than she was comfortable showing, and didn't have any pockets. …Why had she done that again? Oh, right. Because Power Girl had given it to her. "Hey Santo, you got the extra gem?"

Rockslide shook his head. "Not me. Pretty sure Miss Marvel had it."

"No pockets," Miss Marvel said.

"I got it," Luke Cage said, pulling a blue gem from the pocket of his blue-jeans. He held it up. "You want me phone home?" he asked.

Miss Marvel nodded. "Do it."

"Tell them we need Lois Lane," Karen said. "If they can send her right to us, great. If not, just talking to us would be better than nothing." A beat passed, and she looked down at her costume and blushed. "... and can you have her bring me a spare uniform from the Blackbird?"

Luke Cage laughed. "I'll tell her."

Cage walked a few steps away and began a conversation with Heimdall on the other end of the Rainbow Bridge, and the others began to talk amongst themselves. All but Cyborg, who stood ramrod straight, waiting for the news, and Sinestro, who frowned thoughtfully as he studied Karen. Presently, he held up his hand. "Ring," he said. "Identify species."

What? Why would he care about that? Could a power ring even identify her species?

"**Species identified: Kryptonian."**

OK, apparently it could.

Sinestro raised an eyebrow. "Kryptonian?" He spoke to Karen, then. "Forgive me. I'd been led to believe that Krypton was destroyed, and all its people with it."

A sudden sense of being inside of the symbioship that had carried her to Earth rose up around her. The familiar VR city, the simulations of her parents who had raised her, the other citizens, her friends - each one a simulation of someone who would have been one of her peers if Krypton hadn't been destroyed. She'd known it was a simulation. They'd never hid that from it. But it had **felt **real, and… No. That wasn't her memory. That was one of Kara's. There'd been a little bit of crossover between the two during the time they'd shared a body, and some of the memories lingered. She'd probably made that a little worse when the Cuckoos had given her Kara's ability to control her own powers, but it was still unusual for her to experience a memory like that. Especially after she'd joined with Divine.

Sinestro was waiting for an answer, and the Flash was listening to their conversation, too. … and so was Miss Marvel. Damn.

Karen decided to be as honest as possible. "I don't know all the details," she said, "But a few families realized what was coming. My family managed to send a few of its children to safety. My, uh, father, Zor-L, put my sister Kara in a symbioship and sent her to Earth. Zor-L's brother, Jor-L, sent his son as well. I arrived later. It's kind of a long story." She tried to ignore the Flash's gaze. Didn't meet it. He didn't say anything.

Sinestro nodded. "I know well the pain of being one of the last survivors of one's world. My condolences to you, and to your sister, Miss…"

"Zor-L," Karen said. "Karen Zor-L."

"Miss Zor-L."

Karen nodded, letting out a breath. Was she really here, right now, having a pleasant chat with **Sinestro**? … Apparently so. "Thanks," she managed. "I appreciate that, um, Mr. Sinestro."

He smiled, and when he did, the harsh lines of his face seemed to vanish into geniality. His smile was… pleasant, actually. She hadn't expected that. If she'd been attracted to men, even with the red skin she'd have called him handsome. "Please," he said. "Call me Thaal."

And now Sinestro was flirting with her. Life had officially taken a turn for the weird. 'Come on, Karen,' she thought, 'You can deal with this.' How do you show that you're not interested? Amend that: how do you show someone you're not interested without punching them in the stomach or telling them to get lost or something? Mention her girlfriend? Tell him she's gay? "Thaal it is," she said distantly. Or that. Right.

He chuckled. "I apologize, Miss Zor-L. It was not my intent to make you uncomfortable."

Karen flushed red with embarrassment. "Uh, it's OK. I'm, uh, you didn't make me uncomfortable."

"I see. I will trouble you no more."

He moved off to speak with Cyborg, then, and Karen glared down at her own hands, mentally kicking herself for how poorly she'd handled that. She walked to the edge of the roof and looked down at the streets of Gotham city.

"Well," the Flash said as he came to stand by the edge of the roof, a yard or two away from her. "That was weird, even by my standards."

"That's what she said," Karen replied without thinking. And then realized what she'd said and had another full-body blush. "Um. Hi."

Flash laughed softly, but there was no mockery in it. "So," he said, "What's your story? Because I know for a fact Power Girl doesn't have a sister."

Karen looked up at him. The others were out of hearing range, and she was pretty sure none of them had superhuman hearing. Should she tell him about being Xander? About the whole experience so far? … No. Keep it simple. "I'm her clone," she admitted.

Flash nodded. "Cadmus?" he asked.

Karen made a face. "Not exactly," she said. She took a breath and turned to face the Flash. "Doctor Sivana," she said.

The Flash's eyes narrowed. "Sivana? With the Injustice League?"

Karen nodded. "That's the guy."

"Does Karen know?" The Flash asked.

Karen blinked. "What?" A pause. Oh. Right. Power Girl had been going by 'Karen' for the last couple of years before all this happened. "She goes by Kara now. And yeah. She knows." She looked The Flash in the eye. "Are you going to tell anyone?" she asked.

The Flash shook his head. "I'm going to confirm your story with Power Girl, but aside from that? Not unless you prove that I need to. Otherwise, it's your secret."

Karen nodded. "Thanks." The sky was beginning to brighten on the eastern horizon. Sunrise wasn't far away, though chances were they wouldn't see it through the rain. She didn't feel tired, though. At all. "Flash?" she asked.

"Hmm?"

"We're going to fix this. All of this."

The Flash was silent for a moment. Then he nodded. "I know we are. I just hope it doesn't come at too high a price, and I wish..." he trailed off.

Karen swallowed thickly. "Yeah," she said. "Me too." She paused. "We can't trust Sinestro."

"Flash Fact," The Flash replied with the faintest of smiles.

"He's probably going to betray us at some point."

The Flash nodded.

Another voice spoke, then, harsh and low. Batman. How long he'd been there, Karen had no idea, but she jumped at the sound, and it took a half second before she actually processed what he'd said. "You've got a reason to distrust him?"

"Gah!" Karen took a few breaths, trying to still her nerves. "How long have you been there?"

"Long enough," Batman replied.

"He's evil. Seriously. He'll turn on us sooner or later. We can't trust him," she said again.

Batman's expression did not change. "I don't trust any of you," he said.

"Good," Karen replied. Then she blinked. "Wait, what?"

Batman didn't reply, and cloaked in shadow with his glowing red eyes, he didn't need to.

Karen shivered. "Right."

They'd moved since the battle against Doomsday. Outside of Coast City. They were heading down into Marin County, now, moving at low enough altitude to stay off the radar. Booster Gold was carrying Prodigy, Irma and Spider-Woman were flying on their own, and Hellion was carrying Mercury. Kid Flash and Hot Pursuit kept up on the ground without trouble. They didn't stop till they hit Point Reyes, where they finally halted a little ways from a red wooden building with a sign out front that read 'Station House Cafe.' It was closed now. It was night, and nobody was on the street. Not that many people lived here to begin with. That had been ten minutes ago, and Prodigy had been working on the communicators ever since.

"... Almost," he muttered. "Almost got it…"

"Booster," Irma said, "We've got something for you to take a look at."

Booster raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

Kid Flash nodded. "We nabbed some supplies from Brainiac in the 31st Century. We were hoping you could take a look at them and tell us if we got anything useful."

Booster shrugged. "I can't promise anything, but I'll take a look. Skeets, you up for this?"

Booster Gold's little robotic sidekick bobbed up and down. "Ready!"

Kid Flash emptied the bike's saddlebags, and Skeets began to scan it almost immediately. A moment later, Skeets tilted sideways. "Most of this is not useable," it announced. "But this device" a beam of light illuminated a spherical object with no obvious means of interface, "Appears to be a teleportation relay. An active relay, in fact. I am currently jamming its signal as a safety precaution."

Irma picked up the sphere, and a holographic display sprang into being at her touch. "Teleportation relay? Interesting."

"Indeed," Skeets said, "But without a primary system for it to connect to, its usefulness is limited at best."

"Almost there…" Prodigy muttered. Then the communicator he was working on let out an odd little warbling click. A moment later, all the other communicators did the same. "And done," he said. He activated the communicator. "This is Prodigy, calling anyone who can hear my voice. Avengers, New X-Men, please respond."

Silence, and then: "This is Miss Marvel. What's your location, Prodigy?"

Hellion grinned. "All right," he said. "Now we're getting somewhere."

"Miss Marvel, Prodigy. I'm with Hellion, Mercury, Spider-Woman, Phoenix, Booster Gold, Kid Flash, and Hot Pursuit. We're at the Point Reyes Station south of Coast City."

"I read you, Prodigy. I'm in Gotham City with Nightwing, Rockslide, Elixir, Dust, Batman, the Flash, and Cyborg."

Kid Flash immediately looked up. "Barry, or Wally?" he asked.

There was a pause as the question was relayed.

"Barry," Miss Marvel relayed through the communicator.

"Can I talk to him?" Kid Flash asked.

"When we're done here," Prodigy replied.

A moment later, another voice spoke over the comm, "This is Logan. I'm in Central City with Laura, Iron Man, and Noriko."

"Anyone seen Steve?" Miss Marvel asked.

"I'm here," Captain America replied. "The Rainbow Bridge dropped me off with Mr. Madrox in Scotland. We've relocated to England. We're working with the Resistance against the Amazonian occupation."

"All right, people," Iron Man said over the commlink, "We need to rendevouz. Steve, you'll have to sit tight until we can get to you. The rest of you, can you get to Gotham?"

Cyborg spoke next, "Metropolis would be better. I've got a secure location we can meet at."

Spider-Woman shook her head, though none of the others could see it. "Unless you can arrange transport for us, I think we're stuck here."

A pause. Then Miss Marvel said, "Flash is asking you to confirm that you've got both Kid Flash and Hot Pursuit with you at Point Reyes south of Coast City."

"Confirmed," Spider-Woman said.

"He says he'll be right there."

Prodigy raised an eyebrow. "He'll be right here? He's over a thousand miles a..."

The Flash decelerated into view, surrounded by crackling speed-force lightning.

"...way," Prodigy finished.

"Grandpa!"

The Flash grinned and ruffled Kid Flash's hair. "Heya Bart," he said. "It's good to see you." He nodded to Booster Gold, "Booster." Then he looked at Hot Pursuit and raised an eyebrow. "OK, that's new. Are you yet an alternate reality version of me, or…"

Hot Pursuit put a hand on the back of her helmet, and though her face could not be seen, her body language showed her discomfort. "Not exactly," she said.

The Flash blinked. "Patty?"

"Guilty," Hot Pursuit admitted.

"How'd you get the bike? And the costume?"

"She stole it from a police evidence locker," Kid Flash said.

"Hey!"

"Well, it's true!"

Ms. Marvel held up a hand as she interrupted, "Look, as touching as this scene is, we either need a way to get to Metropolis, or we need to go to ground."

The Flash and Kid Flash exchanged glances. The Flash nodded at his grandson.

"The Flash and I can channel some velocity into the rest of you through the Speed Force so we can all run across the country in the space of a few seconds," Kid Flash said. He thought about it. "We can pick up your friends, too. Logan, right?"

Irma, Hot Pursuit, and Booster Gold knew better, but the others reacted with no small degree of incredulity. Prodigy probably summed it up best: "What."

Kid Flash grinned, and Booster Gold nodded. "Not a bad idea," Booster said.

"You can do that?" Mercury asked.

Kid flash nodded. "Kid Flash fact."

Prodigy hesitated, and then just decided to go with it. "I guess I always wanted to be able to tell the laws of physics to shut up and sit down," he said. "Let's do it."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Earth 616<strong>_

_**Asgardia**_

Lois Lane didn't need the crutches anymore. The others had been gone for four hours, and in that time, Eir's healing power had restored her to health. And in that time, all she could think about was Clark, alone, the subject to her father's experiments. The father she hadn't seen since he'd supposedly been killed, but now that she had her real memories back, she realized that he hadn't died - he was trapped in the Phantom Zone.

Real. Were the memories of her life with Superman more real than the memories of her life in the other world? She wasn't sure. Maybe it didn't matter. Even as the thought occurred to her, she knew it to be a lie: it mattered. Her husband wouldn't remember her. Never mind that they were both years younger than they should be, he wouldn't remember her except as the little girl he protected from…

...from Project Zero.

Word had been sent. She was needed. It was time to cross the Rainbow Bridge. The door to her chamber opened, but it wasn't Heimdall. Lois looked up. Brunnhilde was waiting at the doorway.

"If you're here to try to convince me to stay here while other people fight to save my world, you can save your breath," Lois said.

Brunnhilde held up her hand. "Peace, Lois Lane. In truth, I am here to ask if you wish to arm yourself before you join the others on your Earth."

Lois blinked. "Arm myself?" she asked.

"Come," Brunnhilde said. Lois followed. It was hard not to when a Valkyrie asked you to go with her.

And when they reached their destination, surrounded by the armory of the Valkyries of Asgard, Lois Lane smiled fiercely. "Arm myself."

* * *

><p><em><strong>New Earth<strong>_

_**The Flashpoint**_

When Irma arrived on the rainy rooftop of that stupid Wayne Casino in Gotham city, speed force lightning curling around her as she emerged from Kid Flash's shared velocity, Karen let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding, and she grinned. "God, Irma, it's good to see you." She drew Irma into her arms and kissed her fiercely. "Everything all right on your end?"

Irma nodded. "A few misadventures. Nothing a little time travel couldn't fix."

"Time travel?"

"Don't ask."

"... Time travel?"

Irma didn't quite smile, but it was there in her eyes. "It's a long story."

"She wound up in the 31st century, and we used a cosmic motorcycle to get back," Kid Flash said helpfully.

"... Apparently not that long."

"Right," Karen said. She looked to the others. "Everyone else is all right?" she asked.

Prodigy nodded. "We're good. We had a run-in with Doomsday, but Kid Flash dealt with it."

Karen raised an eyebrow. "Dealt with it?" she asked.

"Don't ask."

"Right," Karen said again. She and Irma drew away from the others, then, and Karen frowned. "Hey, I've been meaning to ask, where are Phoebe and Celeste?"

* * *

><p>"We don't understand why you're being like this, Irma," Celeste said. They were in their room all together, the door shut. Irma was packing an overnight bag. Phoebe and Irma both looked at Celeste, and Celeste sighed. "... OK, that's not true. We understand, we just think it's stupid."<p>

"She thinks it's stupid," Phoebe clarified, "I think it's boring."

"I know," Irma said.

"I get it," Celeste said. "You like her. We all feel that because you do. And you like having something that's only yours like what you and Karen have is. Fine. You want to have something that's just for you? We'll go shopping. You can get some nice shoes and we promise to never ever wear them. And we'll all live happily ever after and not die the way someone always does when one of us falls in love."

Irma shook her head. "We'll be leaving soon. You two should pack." She could feel their fear. Their fear for her, the fear of losing another part of themselves. She felt it, too. It was her fear just as much as it was theirs. When Esme had died, when Sophie had died, they hadn't just lost sisters: they'd been **diminished.** Their greater whole had been made less. The thought of that happening again was _terrifying_.

"She hasn't though," Phoebe said. "Fallen in love. You haven't, have you?" She didn't really need to ask it out loud. They were joined in mind. They didn't need to say a word, but they were. Sometimes it felt good to talk it out instead of think it. "You like her a lot, and she likes you, and you're both totally attracted to each other. We get that. But you're not in love. So why are you going with her?"

"Does it have to be true love?" Irma asked. "She makes me happy, I like her, she likes me, she's gorgeous, and she wants to be with me. Can't that be enough?"

Silence.

"She's my friend, too. That counts for something, right?

Silence.

"Come on," Irma said. "You should pack something, too."

They both looked at her, and she knew what she'd known for a while now: they weren't coming.

"Celeste," Irma said sadly. "Phoebe."

"We'll always be Three-in-One," Celeste said.

"But we can't come with you," Phoebe finished. "Not this time."

* * *

><p>Irma didn't flinch. She didn't look away. She showed no sign of the sadness she felt, of the emptiness inside her where the telepathic link with her sisters was supposed to be, and would be again when she came home. "They decided it would be better to run interference for us back home," she said.<p>

"Huh," Karen said. "That was nice of the…" she trailed off. "You had a fight. You can have fights?"

"We're not the same person," Irma said. "Well, we are, but we aren't." A pause. "We had a fight."

"Hey," Karen said, "It's OK."

They stood like that in silence, Karen's arm around Irma, and Irma put her head on Karen's shoulder. The rain had soaked them both to the skin, but that didn't matter. What mattered was...

"Hey, you're not the only people here, you know," Kid Flash said.

… and the moment was over.

* * *

><p>When Lois Lane returned to New Earth, she returned bearing the arms and armor of a Valkyrie of Asgard, and with Heimdall at her side. The Rainbow Bridge's fiery passage deposited them at the very feet of Cristo Redentor in Rio de Janeiro. There were no city lights in the pre-dawn twilight; the thunder of artillery rang out again and again. The city was burning. Warships filled the harbor and aircraft filled the sky; the Brazilian navy was making its last stand against the the Nazi war machine. Lois had known things were bad in South America, that the Fifth Reich was on the march and had taken most of Brazil, but with everything else going on in the world, with all of Africa crushed beneath the boot of Grodd, with all of Europe destroyed by tidal waves as Atlantis and Themyscira made war, with Alaska and northwestern Canada overrun by zombies, the Middle East conquered by the Teth-Adam and Isis, India suffering beneath the Outsider's iron fist… the enormity of the nightmare that was the world hit her in a rush, and for a moment it was all she could do to stand.<p>

How had things gotten this bad? Were they this bad in Asia as well? There hadn't been any news out of China or Japan for… God, a year?

A nearby explosion shocked her back to reality.

"Miss Lane?" Heimdall asked.

Lois shook her head. "I'm fine," she said. She tapped her communicator. "This is Lois. We're at Cristo Redentor in Rio de Janeiro."

The Flash was there a few seconds later, and that brought back a whole host of memories that Lois didn't have time to deal with right now. He surveyed the city, and Lois immediately knew what he was going to ask. She forestalled him: "Get as many civilians to safety as you can," she said. "We'll be fine." She looked to Heimdall. "Right?"

Heimdall's expression grew severe, but he nodded. "Provided the delay is not over long, my power shall protect thee this day, Miss Lane."

The Flash vanished. It took him ten minutes to evacuate the surviving civilians from the city and to relocate them to the relative safety of Puerto Rico. Two hundred thousand people, speed lent to five at a time, running over land and sea to Puerto Rico and back some 40,000 times. Ten minutes during which Lois could do nothing but watch as the Brazilians made their stand against the Fifth Reich. A few explosions came uncomfortably close, and Lois heard the sound of shouting and gunfire a few hundred yards distant, but that was all. Then the Flash returned and held out his hand. She took it.

"Run," he said.

They ran. The Flash, Lois Lane, and Heimdall of Asgard. The Flash lent them speed, and they crossed the ocean as if it were solid ground. Time seemed to slow down - or maybe her perceptions sped up. It didn't feel like it took a long time, but Lois was aware of every step of the run nonetheless.

It took six seconds to get to Metropolis from Rio de Janeiro. Then she, the Flash, and Heimdall arrived in a large room dominated by communications equipment and monitor screens. Cyborg was there already, as was Iron Man, Kid Flash, Booster Gold, Karen, and a few others, including a Green Lantern she didn't recognize.

Lois glanced at each person in turn, speed force lightning fading from around her, and then looked to Cyborg. "Well," she said, "I'm back."

Cyborg's lips twitched, as if haunted by the ghost of a smile. The expression seemed strange to her after ten minutes in a war zone. "Miss Lane," he said, "I can honestly say I did not expect to see you return like this," he said.

Lois excused herself for a few minutes. When she returned, Iron Man brought her up to speed. Told her what they'd gone over so far. Explained Cyborg's objections, and his need for proof. "Everything they've told you is true, Cyborg. I've been to Asgard." She gestured to Heimdall, "This is Heimdall. _The_ Heimdall. He's here to help." Heimdall inclined his head. Lois went on. "The world is really going to end tomorrow. We can't stop that. But we can save as many people as possible. And we have a plan."

Cyborg nodded. "All right. Let's hear it."

They talked. They talked and they planned, and the discussion lasted for nearly an hour as they hammered out the details of what was to come.

"How many people can this Rainbow Bridge of yours take across to the other world?" Cyborg asked.

"Its capacity is not at issue," Heimdall replied. "What is at issue is its stability. Had I another season to calibrate it, I would not hesitate to employ it here. But there is no way of telling where those transported by the bridge will emerge into Midgard. Some would make it to safety, no doubt, but others might be deposited in the vacuum of space, others in the void between realities, still others might emerge inside the earth, others under water, still more in the air."

Cyborg frowned. "Is there any way to stabilize the gateway? Anything we can do on this side?"

Heimdall shook his head. "At your current level of technology, I do not believe so."

Irma spoke up, then. "What if we had access to a teleportation relay from a much more advanced civilization?" she asked.

"I believe I could jury-rig a teleportation gate using that and the other supplies brought back from the 31st century," Skeets said. "Sir, may I have your permission to assist in this?"

Booster Gold nodded. "Sure, Skeets. Soon as you're done with the temporal stabilizers."

Heimdall thought about it. "If your technology can be made to… interface… with Bifrost, yes. But how do you propose we acquire such a thing?"

Kid Flash and Patty Spivot exchanged glances, and Irma looked like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. "I already have, honored Heimdall" Irma said, and as the formality of her language increased, a faint hint of her mother's fake British accent entered her voice. "I did it eight hours from now. And I can deliver it wherever you like in twenty."

The next few minutes were consumed by a discussion of the best site to set up the gateway. Well, more accurately, it consisted of Heimdall saying that it must be London, must be the southern end of London Bridge, in fact, and Cyborg trying to convince him to put it somewhere else.

"It's going to be a logistical nightmare getting as many people as possible from the United States to the heart of Amazonian territory," Cyborg said. "And we'll be taking civilians - refugees - into a war zone."

Lois sighed. "If they stay, they die," she said.

"Even with the assistance of a teleportation gate," Heimdall said, "That is the only location on this world with the correctly aspected leylines to support such a large gate between our two worlds. However, I believe I may be able to establish several relays. These would allow mortals to be shunted to the gate by crossing through these relays. From there, it will be another fifty yards to the gate itself and safety, provided the gate is properly attuned."

Karen nodded. "That would be easier if Layla were here. If she could get to Wonder Woman and wake her up to her memories of the other timeline…"

As if summoned by those words, the floor seemed to part like water in the western side of the room, allowing Layla Miller, Kara Zor-L, and Atlee to enter the chamber from below.

"Speak of the devil," Karen said.

Atlee blinked, and looked at Kara. "You have a twin?" she asked.

Kara smiled. "I'll explain later."

"OK," Karen said. "Apparently we've got Layla. Hey Kara." Her eyes widened slightly. "Is that…?"

Kara nodded.

Karen grinned, but didn't say whatever she was going to say on account of annoyed shushing from the others.

"We heard most of what you were discussing through the stone," Kara said, nodding in acknowledgement to Atlee, whose powers had made that possible.

"My people can help with your evacuation," Atlee said, "We've got some really advanced technology compared to what you have available up here."

"What do you want in exchange?" Cyborg asked.

"To come with you," Atlee replied. "We plan on coming back here afterwards, but it won't be safe for us here until everything's settled."

"Are we ready to move on Project Superman?"

Cyborg nodded. "We are. And it's starting to sound like a real plan, too." He smiled a bit ruefully. "Now I just have to convince the President to go along with this."

Then Booster Gold handed out the newly fabricated temporal armbands that would help to stabilize the existence of the non-natives inside the timeline, and the meeting broke up a minute or two later. It was decided: Karen, Kara, Atlee, Wolverine, Layla, Prodigy, Mercury, and Spider-Woman would deal with Project Superman. Heimdall would set up a few transfer points. The Flashes would assist with the evacuation. They'd get as many people as they could, and as much supplies for those people as they could. Everyone else would be going to England to assist Captain America and the Resistance.

Well, everyone except Irma and Hot Pursuit, who apparently had a stable time loop to close.

* * *

><p>The rescue operation at Project Superman was going to begin in six hours. That gave five hours for people who needed it to get a chance to sleep before things got crazy. Irma had already left with Hot Pursuit on her cosmic motorcycle, and there was a noun-phrase Karen had never thought she'd use. She'd offered to go with, but Irma had just smiled and shaken her head. "Go rescue your cross-temporal cousin," she'd said.<p>

All of which left Karen lying on a sleeping bag in a cold concrete room with basically nothing to do except listen to the other New X-Men sleep. Oh, sure, she tried to sleep at first, but she didn't feel tired. She'd been awake for almost twenty four hours now, and she didn't feel tired at all. Not that it was ever easy for her to sleep. Super hearing made even the softest, faintest noises incredibly obvious. She still wasn't sure how she'd managed to sleep all those nights at the Xavier Institute. It wasn't just that at least a couple of couples were coupling every night, and that she could hear _all _of them - even the ordinary sounds of breathing and snoring in nearby rooms were loud, and that's not even going into things like birds, insects, and passing cars. She'd just never not felt sleepy after twenty four hours awake before.

She knew what it was. The clarity of her memories was another thing that was getting better: Kara had told her that she'd eventually get to the point that her body was so suffused with Solar energy that it wouldn't need sleep anymore, and she knew that it was only a matter of time before she didn't need food, either, but knowing it was coming and experiencing it yourself were two different things.

The sound of voices interrupted her thoughts. It was Atlee's voice coming from the other side of the base, audible only because of her super-hearing. She glanced towards the sound, and allowed her vision to shift until she could see through the walls to where Kara and Atlee were still talking in the otherwise empty meeting room. "You're kidding!" Atlee said, sounding positively horrified. "She was in control of your body? Were you aware of it?"

"I was," Kara replied, and her voice was thick with emotion. "It wasn't her fault that it happened. I could see through my eyes, and hear with my ears, but I tried to move and I wouldn't, I'd try to speak and I couldn't." She lowered her voice, and Karen got a lump in her throat as Kara went on. "I was barely conscious for the first month, but after that… it was bad, Atlee. It was really bad. Sometimes I'd be able to talk to Karen, or to one of the telepaths at the school, but most of the time…" she trailed off, and Karen realized with a sudden shock that Kara Zor-L was crying.

Atlee put her arms around her, murmured words of compassion and understanding, and Power Girl cried.

Karen looked down at her own hands. She had put Kara through that. Her and Cordelia and whatever power had turned them all into their costumes on that Halloween that had only been a few months but felt like a lifetime ago. She'd never really thought about what it must have been like. She'd seen Kara as a living, moving presence, but that had only been what she'd seen: Kara had never left her own body. Except for those few incredibly brief times when Karen had lost control, Kara had been a prisoner in her own body while someone else ran around in its driver's seat. For months. She felt sick to her stomach.

"I'm sorry," Karen whispered.

It wouldn't have been audible to anyone else, but Kara looked up and met Karen's gaze through the walls of the facility, and the sight of Power Girl's tear-streaked face twisted the knife of guilt in Karen's guts. "It's not your fault, Karen," Power Girl replied. "But if you're going to talk to me, you might as well come out here where Atlee can hear you, too."

Karen tried to smile, but couldn't. She hesitated a few seconds, and then stood up and went out into the other room where Kara and Atlee were waiting. She sat down next to Kara on the opposite side from Atlee and put her arm around the other Kryptonian. "Doesn't matter if it's my fault," she said. "I'm still sorry." There was a lot that was unsaid inside that statement, but Kara seemed to hear it.

"I forgive you, Xander," she said.

Xander. It felt weird to be called that, now. Xander Harris. It was easy to tell herself that she'd never actually been him. That she was just a copy of him. A leftover from the spell cast at Halloween that had somehow wound up in charge instead of fading into Kara's subconscious the way she should have. Maybe that would have been better. But she didn't **feel** like a copy. When she thought about Tony and mom and uncle Rory, and Buffy and Willow and even Cordelia, and … and Jesse, it felt like they were her family, and her friends. They felt like her memories. And so did Divine's. And she wasn't going to cry. She wasn't going to cry, damn it.

She cried.

She'd come to comfort Kara, but now she was crying, too. For what had happened to Kara, and for herself, and Kara cried with her. Afterwards, Karen felt drained. Emotionally exhausted. And still not sleepy.

Almost an hour later, Karen turned to Atlee with faint smile. "So I'm Karen," she said, and offered a hand..

Atlee didn't quite laugh, but a tiny hesitation on account of not being used to handshakes, she shook Karen's hand. "I got that," she said. "I'm Atlee, though I guess you know that already."

Karen nodded. "Yeah."

A moment passed, and then Karen looked at Kara. "Hey Peej, you mind if I ask you something?"

"Sure," Kara said.

"... Do you think I should try for a secret identity?"

Atlee raised an eyebrow at that, but said nothing. Kara also raised an eyebrow, but was a bit more vocal in her response. "Why do you ask?"

Karen shrugged. "... I don't know. I guess I've been thinking about the future, wondering what's going to happen when all of this is over. When everything goes back to something approaching normal. I'm going to graduate from high school next year, and… I don't know. Do you think we should keep what we are and what we can do separate from the rest of our lives?"

"You're probably asking the wrong girl. Sure, I've gone by Karen Starr for a while, and when all this is over, I'm going to have to file a DA-3 form so I can keep my company, but my idea of a secret identity is less 'elaborate performance piece' and more 'put on civilian clothes and a hair band.'"

"DA-3 form?"

"Do they not have those in your world? It's a special circumstances filing for people who've been magically or otherwise de-aged against their will. It's not common, but it happens often enough that there's a standard form for it."

Karen shook her head incredulously. "Oookay," she said. A beat passed. "I'd always wondered why you did the civilian clothes and a hair band thing. Seemed like anyone could have recognized you."

Kara thought about it. "I guess it's different for me. I grew up in symbioship's VR environment. Which means I basically grew up Kryptonian." She gestured to herself. "This IS who I am. Superman, though? ... I might call him Kal-El sometimes, but that's not his real name."

Now there was some food for thought. "Hmm," Karen said. "So it's less about protecting you and more about being who you are?"

"Kind of," Kara said. "Maybe it'd be different if I had family I needed to protect, who could be hurt if anyone knew who I was, but..." She hesitated, and then continued in a much quieter voice, "My Lois Lane died a long time ago."

Karen put her arm around Kara once again with a smile. "Well, now you have a clone." A beat passed. "Sister. I meant to say sister."

Kara laughed, her whole mood visibly lightening, and she hugged Karen fiercely and nodded in confirmation. "Sister."

* * *

><p>The sewers below Metropolis were surprisingly clean. Oh, the water itself wasn't anything you wanted to go wading around in, but the walkways looked like they were cleaned pretty regularly. Karen didn't want to think about the poor shmuck whose job it was to do that. Assuming they didn't use, like, robots or something.<p>

"Which way?" Batman asked.

They were rushing down the walkway alongside the water flow. Cyborg pulled up a holographic map and consulted it a moment. "Just follow me," he said. "I've downloaded the schematics for the Superman Project and its associated complex. It's a multilevel facility about two miles underground redesigned to study Subject 1 and apparently two other rockets that landed on Earth subsequently. Subject 2 and Subject 3. Supposedly, there's also another test subject here called Subject Zero, who was some kind of super-soldier experiment using DNA from something called Project Six under a General Adam. The data on him's been purged pretty thoroughly, though. That's about all I could locate."

"What kind of security we lookin' at?" Wolverine asked.

Cyborg smirked. "The kind we want to avoid." He pulled open a service hatchway that looked like it had been welded shut a long time ago. He didn't even have to strain - just stuck his metal hands in and yanked it apart with a screech of protesting metal. The drop on the other side was dizzying - this was where the high speed elevators from the complex went up and down. It wasn't two miles straight down - there were several elevators at staggered intervals, each with their own security checkpoints. But they would be bypassing all of that thanks to Cyborg and the complete schematics he'd, ah, acquired. He'd been a little vague on the specifics.

It would have been an enormous effort to get down here if not for Terra. She was able to create a rock platform that served as an elevator for the lot of them. At the bottom of each shaft, she'd break it up into a cloud of smaller rocks that would follow behind them, then reform it when it was time for the next descent.

"Wow," Prodigy said, "This would be really annoying to go through the hard way."

Batman grunted.

At the very bottom of the last elevator shaft, Cyborg paused a moment, and then put his fist into the wall. After a few seconds of digging, he nodded to himself. "And there's the hard line," he said. His hand began to glow, and a couple of cables snaked out from it into the wall. "I'm in. All right. I'm cycling their motion sensors and security cameras through a continual loop of the same data, same footage, but that won't go unnoticed for long."

Cyborg concentrated a moment, and the door slid open with a hiss. "There we go," he said.

They entered the facility. The corridors were empty. Karen glanced around with her x-ray vision and spotted a couple of guards, but nobody was near them. At least not yet.

"The staff is at half-strength on the weekends," Cyborg said quietly. "Budget cuts. What can you do? But that doesn't mean we can afford to get careless. The first checkpoint should be up ahead."

They passed a glass window with the words 'Subject 2' written on it. Kara winced at the sight of the canine skeleton within. "Poor Krypto," she said.

The guards at the first checkpoint went down quickly to a pair of batarangs coated in a general anesthetic. It was touch and go in the corridors for a while as staff became more visible moving about.

"Wait," Layla said, just before Batman would have opened another door.

Batman waited, and Karen watched through the door with her x-ray vision as two women and a man all in labcoats walked past. When they were gone, Layla nodded, and Batman opened the door to the main level of Project Superman.

The door opened, and Karen's world dissolved into white light.

When the light faded, she stood on a field of stars before a woman robed in purple. She was lovely and severe - her eyes were the most startling feature. They were blue, but no shade of blue found in nature, and that had a hypnotic quality to them.

Karen looked around, then at the woman. "Oh, shit," she said.

The robed woman glared at her imperiously. "Rats in the walls," she muttered. "Intruders in my Flashpoint. You must have expected that you would be noticed sooner or later. Or did you think I was blind? That you could interfere in this timeline without consequence?"

The big bad. She'd been called, somehow, into the presence of the big bad herself. Great. And... she couldn't move. That was awesome, too. "You must be Pandora," Karen said.

Pandora's brows furrowed. "How could you possibly know that?" she asked.

"I read comic books," Karen said. OK, maybe that level of flippancy wasn't exactly advisable when dealing with the big bad, but damn it, she had traditions to uphold.

Pandora hesitated, uncertainty growing in her eyes. "... is this the influence of Earth Prime?" she wondered aloud. "Impossible. There is only one super-powered being on Earth Prime, and my beacon spell already drew the Black Lanterns to deal with him. Unless…" She looked Karen in the eye. "Who are you, girl?"

There was an urge to comply, but it was faint thing, and Karen easily ignored it. "The terror that flaps in the night," she deadpanned.

Pandora grew visibly angry, and when she spoke again, her voice rang with power and authority. "**Who are you, girl?"**

A wave of pressure seemed to rage suddenly against the borders of her thoughts. She couldn't think. She couldn't concentrate. It was… "... Karen Zor-L," she said before she could stop herself.

Pandora looked visibly startled. "Zor-L? Impossible."

That initial fear response was gone now, and irritation was quickly taking residence in it splace. "If you say so," Karen said.

Pandora studied her intently, and then, her voice full of magic once more, she said, "Tell me who you really are."

Karen was ready for it, this time. She set her will against the compulsion, and even so, the words "Divine," and "Xander Harris" are practically on her lips before she can stop them. She stops before she can say anything more than that first 'D,' shutting her mouth with a click of teeth. The compulsion grew, and she ground her teeth to stop herself. It grew stronger still, and she knew she'd have to say something. Something true. She thought of something Kara had mentioned earlier, after the 'sister' talk. Of how Thor had seemed to recognize her, had called her sister as well. … That was it. And suddenly she could resist speaking no more, so she lied with the truth. "...Sister to Kára Odinsdottir," she managed.

Pandora rose to her feet, a look of triumph in her eyes. "So it **is** the old gods," she said. "How did you survive the Ragnarok?" She shook her head. "No matter. You may have escaped the Black Racer thus far, Asgardian, but neither you nor your sister will survive my Flashpoint. Of that you can be certain."

Karen grimaced. "God, do you ever shut up?" she asked.

Pandora's eyes narrowed, and she spoke a single word in a language that Karen did not understand, and the world seemed to be swept away before a tide of pure agony. Her veins felt like they were on fire. Her skin was blistering with the heat. She was burning! She fell to her knees as the stars flew apart around her.

Then it was gone. The stars were gone. The agony was gone. Karen had fallen to her knees in the middle of the corridor just outside the door that opened to the main part of the Superman complex, and smoke rose from her clothing. The memory of pain was long in fading, and Karen was breathing hard. "Oh, crap," she said again.

"Karen!" Kara said, moving to her side. "Are you all right? What happened?"

Karen looked up. "Pandora knows we're here."

That was when everything went to hell.

A series of explosions rippled through the base, and the sound of something roaring echoed loudly over the din. Alarms blared deafeningly loud, and security doors began to slam shut.

"We need to move," Logan said.

Cyborg nodded. "It's this way," he said.

The sound of gunfire rang out from down the corridor, but it wasn't aimed at them: an horrific, bestial roar sounded again, and men and women alike screamed before they died. Then a voice called out, deep and grating and awful, "Meh-trop-lissss!"

They ran.

Metal shrieked in protest as Doomsday burst through the wall and cold-cocked Power Girl with a full strength punch that send her through the reinforced steel of the wall and into the rock beyond it.

Karen's eyes widened as the creature sniffed the air and then reared on her. It charged. She was charged by God damn DOOMSDAY, and all she could do was stare at it in sudden and very primal terror. It hit her like a runaway train, throwing her through bulkhead and bulkhead. People were screaming. Humans were running in every direction. Guards were shooting at them, but neither so much as noticed.

The creature had the initiative, and it was all Kara could do to try to defend herself as the creature struck her again, and again, and again, each blow sending her upward, sparks flying, water spraying, a trail of destruction that treated the steel and concrete and rock and sewer and everything else between itself and the surface like it was made out of cardboard. And it **hurt.** God but it HURT! Every single time the thing hit her, she actually FELT it. The creature hit as hard as the Sentry, and she felt like one gigantic bruise by the time they broke through to the streets of Metropolis and she was finally able to recover enough to turn it into a real fight again.

People ran screaming. Vehicles swerved around them, but Doomsday, like the force of nature that it was, cared not at all: it picked up a truck with two men inside and flung it at Karen's head. She had barely a split second to react, but react she did, catching the truck without destroying it and setting it gently down on its still spinning wheels: it peeled out and drove away at high speed.

The monster laughed. It laughed at her, and the sound was like someone had shoved a glass into a blender and set it to maximum.

"This," Karen said, "Is going to suck."

* * *

><p>Power Girl blinked open her eyes, groaned and rubbed her head. She was in a small cave, the walls of which were far too smooth to have been created naturally. Atlee.<p>

"Hey," Atlee said. "Are you OK?"

Power Girl winced. "Anyone get the number of that tank?"

Atlee grinned. "No, but I think your sister did. The others went on ahead to find your cousin."

Tank. Oh hell. That had been Doomsday! Kid Flash had said that he'd hit it with an Infinite Mass Punch. What was it doing here? Shouldn't it have been somewhere around Mars? Then her train of thought hit a rock, derailed, and went tumbling to its fiery destruction at the bottom of the gorge: Doomsday had gone after Karen. Karen was alone against DOOMSDAY.

Power Girl shot to her feet. "We have to find Karen," she said. "Right now."

Atlee nodded, and with a gesture the cave widened into a full blown corridor that connected to the base. What had been a pristine corridor now looked like a post-industrial nightmare, and the change had not been kind to the human beings who had been in its way. Atlee went pale, then looked to Power Girl. "You take care of Doomsday," she said. "I'll help the injured here."

Power Girl nodded. "Good luck," she said.

"You too."

* * *

><p>Lois Lane's heart was racing when she and the others barreled their way through an entire squad of guards at the entrance to the main laboratory. They'd gotten lucky and taken the guards by surprise, but that wasn't going to last. Clark was near. She could almost sense him. All she'd need to do is close her eyes and point and it would be at him. They ran to where Clark's symbol, the crest of the House of El, was carved into the wall itself on the far side of the lab. It was a security door, but not one beyond the ability of Cyborg to hack. It rumbled open, and…<p>

Oh God. He was lying there on a bed in a bare room with no windows and only a well-worn collection of her father's books for company. He was dressed in a black jumpsuit with the S on its chest, and he looked so pale and so young that it almost broke her heart to see him. God, she knew that he was a little younger than her, and she knew that she was younger now than she had been before the Flashpoint, but seeing him like this… God, he couldn't have been older than eighteen or nineteen. "Clark," she breathed.

He didn't stir.

She approached him. Shook him. "Clark?"

He didn't stir.

Lois looked to the others. "What's wrong with him?" she asked.

Layla Miller looked like she'd just swallowed a lemon. "Magic," she said. "Very powerful magic. I might be able to do something about it, but it's going to take time, and I'm going to be completely tapped out for magic afterwards, probably for the next couple of months." She held up two fingers a tiny distance apart. "I'm kind of cheating by using powers I haven't technically learned yet."

Batman took charge almost immediately. "Cyborg," he said, "We need to secure a way out. Ms. Miller, Ms. Lane, close the security door and do what you can for him. The rest of you stand guard and make sure they aren't interrupted until you receive word from either myself, Cyborg, or Ms. Lane. Understood?"

Prodigy exchanged glances with the other New X-Men, then nodded. "Understood," he said.

* * *

><p>Karen was sure she was ready for it. She drew upon every bit of her training, both with the X-Men and with Giles before them to avoid the punch that was coming, drawing upon all of her speed, and even then she only barely evaded it, and Doomsday's wickedly serrated bone-spikes missed her eyes by bare centimeters. She pivoted, then, and kicked the creature, but it barely noticed.<p>

Oh. Oh right. She was still subconsciously holding herself back. The way she'd learned to in order to avoid killing people. That wouldn't work, here.

Doomsday came on like an angry avalanche, its rage building to ever greater heights as it was faced with the very thing it had been created to destroy: a living Kryptonian. People were still running. A police car came screeching to a halt not far away, and then reversed direction and went screeching to a safer distance.

They traded blows, and for a few seconds, Karen held him off. Guide parries and dodges were the order of the day, with Karen trying to be clinical, trying to be calm. Let him rage. Analyze. Find the pattern. Find the weakness. Doomsday couldn't fly. She knew that much. But that wasn't going to help her unless she could find a way to capitalize on it.

The sound of a vehicle crashing distracted her at a crucial moment, and Doomsday's next blow hit her full in the face, and its bone-spike knuckles left her with a bloody cut along her forehead just above her left eyebrow. Her whole head seemed to ring with that, and she was off balance long enough for the beast to hit her in the stomach. It had the momentum, now, and she was barely fending off the majority of its blows. How the hell had Superman fought this thing for three days? At this rate, she wasn't going to last three MINUTES!

She got in a good combination of blows against the thing, but pain only seemed to drive it to greater heights of fury. It kicked her in the back and sent her flying into a parked car. Then it leaped on top of her and started smashing.

"Ow, ow, ow!" she yelped, "Uncle! Damnit, uncle!"

In near panic, Karen let loose with her heat vision and her frost breath simultaneously, and though the creature roared in agony, it didn't let up. In desperation, she heaved with all her might and managed to throw it off of her. She was bleeding. She was actually HURTING! Her bruises were going to have bruises at this rate. This thing was way worse than the Sentry. The Sentry had been a CHUMP compared to this! … Though maybe that had something to do with how he'd blasted her with Solar energy and then threw her into the sun before they'd actually had a chance to really trade blows. "Maybe," she muttered, "Maybe taking on the thing that killed Superman wasn't…" she coughed, "Wasn't such a good idea."

Doomsday leaped at her, and she barely managed to roll out of the way. It whirled around, moving faster than it had any right to, and smashed her flat with a double-handed blow.

Karen fell. She fell, and she coughed up blood when she hit the ground. "Help…" she whispered.

"Oh my god," said a man's voice, "Is it going to kill her? Somebody do something!"

A woman replied, "What are we supposed to against that?"

Doomsday raised its foot over her head, grinning with savage joy as it prepared to stomp her into the ground.

A red, white and blue bolt struck Doomsday head on, resolving into Power Girl as she went from supersonic to a dead stop on the impact of her outstretched foot with Doomsday's skull. The creature went flying end over end and smashed his way clear through an abandoned city bus, lengthwise, and then scraped across fifty yards of pavement before he smashed into a fire hydrant and sent water fountaining into the air.

Power Girl floated in the air, her cape billowing behind her as she glared down at the creature. "Get your hands off my sister, you son of a bitch."

The sonic boom hit a few seconds later.

* * *

><p>By the time the security teams hit them, they'd had time to barricade the area pretty well with desks, tables, and lab equipment. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it was better than nothing, especially if you were an unpowered human like Prodigy was. They ambushed the first team: Prodigy and Rockslide had waited behind the barricade as the troops approached, and then Mercury had shifted out of a nearby grate and clobbered one, Spider-Woman blasted another, and Wolverine took down the rest, though he was taking pains not to kill them. They'd all agreed on that before hand: no killing.<p>

The second group wasn't quite such easy prey: the first had come in fat, happy, and stupid, but the second squad was well prepared. They led the way with flashbangs, and even though Prodigy's glasses shielded him from the worst of it, it was still as disorienting as all hell. Wolverine took a few bullets before he managed to get into a side room, and now they were all pinned down by gunfire.

"We've got to hold!" Prodigy said to the others. "Batman and Cyborg will be back in two minutes. Maybe less. And hopefully they'll have Power Girl and Terra with them when they get here. We only need to hold them off for a little wh..." Prodigy stopped talking abruptly when a man nearly eight feet tall with long silver hair, and glowing blue eyes, and more muscles than any humanoid body had a right to have, came right through the wall with a squeal of tortured steel.

"Shit," one of the soldiers said. "It's Subject Zero! All squads, activate neural-laser…" The silver-haired man - Subject Zero - blurred, and every one of the dozen soldiers holding position near the chamber's exit seemed to explode in a shower of gore.

Subject Zero reappeared a few yards away from where Prodigy, Spider-Woman, Mercury, Wolverine, and Rockslide had barricaded themselves near the entrance to Kal El's living quarters. Kal El was still unconscious: they needed more time.

"A new factor," Subject Zero said. "Interesting."

He moved, and Spider-Woman dove out of the way of a blow that left the distinctive crack of a fist breaking the sound barrier in its wake. "You'll have to do better than that, Muscle-Head," she said, and fired off a blast of yellow lightning from her hands.

It crackled briefly around his form, and he gave her a bored look. "How many metahumans shall I kill today?" he asked. He didn't wait for an answer. He moved forward to engage her, and she fought with everything she had.

The conflict was brief. Spider-Woman was fast, and both her reaction times and reflexes were far quicker than any human's, but she lacked a Spider Sense to give her that critical split second lead time that she needed; Subject Zero was faster. She struck him twice, evaded a hit, ducked under another, and then he put his fist through her chest and then back out the way it came.

Prodigy had barely been able to follow the exchange at all.

Subject Zero opened his hand. There was a sick, wet splat as Spider-Woman's _heart _dropped to the floor.

Spider-Woman looked at the organ for a split second, then met Subject Zero's gaze. Something changed in her expression as blood came pouring out of the hole in her chest. "He loves me," she said, and the sheer hope and insistence in her voice made it sound as if that one statement were the most important thing in the universe.

Subject Zero raised an eyebrow, a look of genuine interest crossing his face. "Who?" he asked.

Spider-Woman fell to the floor, dead before she could reply.

Rockslide's eyes went wide. "You… you killed her!" he said, his jaw dropped open in horror. "You killed her like she was nothing…" Then he clenched his fist. "There's no WAY I'm gonna let you get away with that. How about you pick on someone your own size?"

Rockslide charged, and Mercury moved to support him, her arms shifting into spiked maces.

"Santo, wait!" Prodigy said, his own thoughts racing, and though Mercury hesitated, Santo didn't halt his charge.

Rockslide hit Subject Zero with a full strength punch to the jaw that staggered the man, and followed it with a two-fisted blow to the top of his head. Rockslide reared back to let loose with another full strength blow, but Subject Zero deflected it with a backhanded strike that went right through Rockslide's granite arm, taking it off at the shoulder. Rockslide let out a frustrated growl.

Subject Zero rose to his feet. "Yes," he said calmly, "I killed her. Join her now." And then he struck Rockslide in the throat, crushing it and sending up a spray of pulverized rock dust.

"Rockslide!" Mercury cried. She shouldn't have. It drew Zero's attention, and he pivoted smoothly and ripped off her arms. Her cry turned into a scream of agony as she fell to her knees, liquid mercury splattering across the floor.

"Bastard," Rockslide hissed, seemingly unaffected by a crushed throat.

"I... I can't hold it…" Mercury managed, and then lost her shape entirely, dissolving into a pool of liquid metal. Unmarked by anyone else, the pools of liquid that had been her arms began to flow slowly back towards the main mass.

Rockslide brought up his other arm to block an incoming blow, but it went through that rocky arm as if it were made of tissue paper.

Then Zero ripped Rockslide's head clean off his shoulders, considered it briefly, took in the way it was still glaring at him for all that it had been severed from its body, and crushed it into pebbles and dust. He looked placidly at Prodigy. "One left," he said. Wolverine came charging out of the side room, then, swift and deadly, his every movement precisely measured. Subject Zero caught him by the wrist and flung him into the wall on the far side of the room at a velocity that was a thousand times what a human could accomplish with such a throw. He left a crater a meter deep in reinforced concrete. "One left," Zero repeated.

Prodigy swallowed, but his mouth was dry, and it didn't help. Damn it! Help was less than a minute away! It couldn't end like this, but if he didn't delay this guy long enough for one of the Kryptonians to get here, they'd never get Kal El out. He was shaking, he realized. Trembling. He was afraid, and it showed.

Subject Zero considered Prodigy, then. "You've already seen that you can't stop me. Nothing can. Give up. You will suffer less."

It almost sounded reasonable. What could he do against this kind of power, besides die badly? If he was to die here… if he was to die here… if he was to die here, why had he been allowed to come this far? It was absurd. The whole thing was absurd. And yet, in the face of his fear, he summoned up his will, and shook his head. "I can't do that," he said. "I'm not just going to lie down and die."

"You have no power," Subject Zero replied reasonably. "All your friends are defeated. Attachment will only lead you to suffering. Let go, and embrace tranquility before the end."

Another wave of fear, and Prodigy stood his ground, forcing the fear down beneath his will. Every second he bought was another second closer to Kara or Karen's arrival. "Maybe I can't beat you, but I'm sure as hell not going to let you just walk away after what you've done." It was almost laughable to say it, yet he meant every word. "You're a monster."

"I am," Subject Zero said. He paused a moment. "Do you have anything to say?" he asked. "Any last words?"

Prodigy went pale at that, but his fear did not gain mastery of him. He didn't notice the green light approaching him from down the broken hallway that led to the lab. "Yeah," he said. He took a deep breath, and he opened his mouth to speak his last words.

In that moment, when all hope seemed lost and only death remained, a green light blazed around him. A ring appeared on his finger, and a voice called out, "**David Alleyne. You have the ability to overcome great fear. Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps.**"

Subject Zero blinked.

Power. Power flooded through him like he'd never felt before. The pure strength of Will, of the heart of the Emotional Spectrum. A uniform seemed to shape itself around his body, green and black with white gloves and an empty white circle on his chest. His thoughts raced as the basic information on how to use his ring was downloaded into his thoughts, and he looked at the ring in wonder. "... Anything I can imagine?" he asked.

"Peculiar last words," Subject Zero said. He tilted his head to the side in a strangely bird-like movement. "Die." There was no warning: he simply flashed forward, delivering a punch with the force of a freight train and the speed of a viper.

Prodigy snapped a shield into place at the last possible second, angled to deflect rather than to simply resist, and that proved the difference: the punch slid off and across the shield, unable to deliver its full force. Subject Zero looked at him in surprise.

"I've got something to say, actually," Prodigy said, and opened his hand, the gesture creating a huge energy-construct in the shape of The Thing's fist.

"And what is that?" Subject Zero asked.

With a thought, the green construct Thing-fist smashed Subject Zero through a reinforced steel wall.

Prodigy cracked his knuckles with satisfaction. "It's clobbering time."

* * *

><p>With the pressure taken off of her by Power Girl's arrival, Karen managed to stagger to her feet. She could feel the yellow sun fueling her, but she wasn't healing the way she had on Earth 616, and she had no idea why. Windows were shattering every time Power Girl hit the creature, and thus far, she'd managed to avoid being hit in turn. Of course, Power Girl had only been sucker-punched through a wall, and not rampaged on through two miles of underground fortress.<p>

"Any time you're ready," Power Girl called.

"Just," Karen began, "Catching… my breath…"

And then she rejoined the fight. It was wobbly at first, but they caught their rhythm soon enough, and then the sisters Zor-L were working together as a flawless unit: when Doomsday reared on one, the other would hit him from behind. When he became wise to that tactic and tried to anticipate the blow from behind, the first would hit him instead. Karen took another punch to the head, and her vision seemed to grey out and all sound became a distant ringing for a few terrifying seconds before things went back to normal.

"We need to get this guy out of Metropolis!" Power Girl shouted. There were news copters circling them now at a safe distance.

"Got any ideas?" Karen asked even as she ducked under a savage haymaker from the creature

"A bad one," Power Girl replied.

"I love bad ideas! Let's hear it!"

"How are you at juggling?"

Karen saw where she was going almost immediately. "That's a REALLY bad idea!"

"I know!"

And then Karen flew into the Earth, tunneled for a dozen feet, and came up underneath Doomsday with a full strength blow. He went flying into the air, and then started coming back down. Power Girl caught him by the leg before he'd fallen more than a dozen feet and flung him up another couple of hundred.

Karen punted him from there, up and forward a few hundred more. "It's working!" she yelled excitedly as she flew to the next intercept point.

Doomsday was ready, this time, and pivoted in mid-air to slam his fist into her face.

She fell all the way to the ground, and Doomsday nearly did as well before Power Girl swooped in and threw him upward again. "Karen!" she yelled.

Karen was in the air in a blink, and shot upwards, accelerated rapidly. "This isn't going to work!" she said. "One of us is gonna have to do something unpleasant."

"What's that?"

Karen hit Doomsday at full speed, caught him by the arms, and kept going upward. The creature roared in fury, and kicked her in the ribs once, twice, three times, four times. Again, and again. At twenty thousand feet, it broke three ribs on the left side. At thirty thousand, it broke four more on the right. Another kick, and she fell back, barely able to breath, her whole torso a nightmare of searing pain.

Doomsday began to fall once more, and Power Girl slammed into him, next, taking Karen's place as she rocketed him the rest of the way into orbit. There, together, they dealt the dual-blow that sent him flying out towards deep space.

And then Karen passed out.

* * *

><p>Subject Zero tore his way through a dozen green energy X-Men even as Prodigy unloaded on him with a will-wrought minigun, and though he staggered, he pressed on. They had been fighting for a good thirty seconds, now. Maybe another minute more and help would arrive. Just another minute was all Prodigy needed. Subject Zero moved, but the ring's predictive algorithms saw it coming, and Prodigy met the oncoming monster with another green energy fist that smashed him to the ground.<p>

"Interesting," Subject Zero said as he flipped back to his feet. "I can break your constructs, but you're the first being I've ever needed to exert myself to fight. It is an… odd experience."

Prodigy spotted Wolverine out of the corner of his eyes. He was moving carefully, sneaking up behind Subject Zero, his claws already extended. Another second, and he'd…

"Did you honestly believe you could approach me unheard?" Subject Zero asked, and turned slightly as he casually delivered a backhand to Wolverine. Subject Zero was a marvel of genetic engineering: a human who already possessed the metagene infused with the genetic potential of the being known as Doomsday. His evolutionary regenerative healing factor and adaptive resistances had already altered his body significantly, and his body now mimicked the skin-tight energy field that granted Kryptonians their measure of invulnerability.

Such fields had never been a problem for adamantium. While Wolverine's fists couldn't pass through the field to harm the man beneath, his claws had no such limitations: the claw he'd been aiming at Subject Zero's spine hit his arm at an angle, and bit deeply into it, severing tendons and blood vessels, rending muscle, cutting halfway into the bone itself before Subject Zero was able to reverse his momentum.

He let out a cry, and then stared at his now useless bloody limb in utter surprise. "... Pain," he murmured. "Is this pain? I haven't felt it in…" His expression shifted. Subject Zero had not displayed anything other than a tranquil sort of calm, but now, now he was angry. Now he was **furious**. "I'm going to enjoy killing you," he said.

Prodigy himself was only human. He couldn't hope to react quickly enough to take effective action against a being of Subject Zero's caliber. The ring - Abin Sur's ring, now bestowed upon David Alleyne - had no such limitation. Its predictive algorithms showed Prodigy Subject Zero's most likely next move a full second before it occurred. There was no time to speak. No time for a quip. He acted, and with an effort of will, sent a blast of concentrated green energy into Subject Zero's back. It struck him at precisely the right moment to throw him off balance, to delay him that crucial quarter of a second that Wolverine needed to react to a punch delivered with every bit of strength that Subject Zero could put behind it.

Instead of meeting Wolverine's skull with an impact that would have pulverized his brain with the shockwaves alone even through an adamantium skull, Subject Zero's fist met his claws, blade-on. The result was beyond description. There was blood, so much blood, and bits of meat and fragments of bone and… at some point, Prodigy stopped seeing the individual bits and just saw a mangled, bloody mess. His gorge rose in the back of this throat.

Wolverine took it in stride. He yanked his claw free, drew both claws back, and then buried them to the knuckle in Subject Zero's chest. Subject Zero stared into Wolverine's eyes, surprise and pain written large in his expression. Then, with a roar of effort, Wolverine yanked his claws savagely apart.

Subject Zero died. It wasn't gentle. It wasn't dignified. His life ended.

Prodigy staggered backwards, trying not to vomit. He failed.

Wolverine wiped off his hands on the labcoat of a dead scientist, pulled out a stogie, lit it, stuck it in his mouth, and let out a long puff of smoke. "Everyone all right?" he asked.

Prodigy scrubbed at his mouth with his hand. "I'm OK, but Santo lost his body again." He looked to the pool of liquid mercury which had just finished drawing all the other puddles to itself, "Cessily's hurt, and he killed…" He didn't want to look at Spider-Woman's corpse, but he did. For a second, he wasn't sure what he was looking at. The details were wrong. The body-shape no longer fit the costume. It was still a woman's body, but the skin wasn't the right color, and the chin… the chin was… A chill passed down Prodigy's spine. That woman was a Skrull. That woman was a SKRULL.

Wolverine's eyes narrowed as he took in the sight of the dead Skrull in Spider-Woman's costume.

The implications sunk in, and Prodigy swallowed heavily. "Sir, I think we've got a problem," he said, and his voice sounded faint, distant, even to himself.

"You ain't kiddin'."

It took time for Rockslide and Mercury to reconstitute themselves, but reconstitute themselves they did, and soon enough, a visibly exhausted Mercury sat up and rubbed at her head. "Damn it," she muttered.

"You OK, Cessily?" Prodigy asked.

Mercury let out a breath. "I guess." She hesitated. "No. Not really. I'm tired of being useless. Can we please face some enemies who AREN'T at Karen's power level? Just for novelty's sake?" She shook her head. "... Right. So we're alive. Did we win? What happened to the bad guy?"

Rockslide pointedly didn't look at Subject Zero's remains. "He, uh, had to split."

Prodigy winced. "Santo," he said, his tone disapproving.

"What?" Rockslide asked. "Too soon?"

* * *

><p>In the end, they had to carry Kal El out of Project Superman. They had gone in convinced that victory would be swift and easy. They had come out knowing better. Spider-Woman was dead. And a Skrull. Karen was unconscious. Power Girl was injured. Santo looked like he was going to sleep for a week, Prodigy was exhausted, Lois was hovering over the unconscious Kal El like a mother bird, and Cessily felt like she'd been hit by a truck. The only ones who were still in good condition were Terra, Batman, and Cyborg.<p>

Cessily managed not to resent them for that.

It was a subdued and damaged group that returned to Cyborg's Metropolis hideout. They had won, but not easily, and Cessily found herself glaring angrily at anyone who came into her view. Captain America was there waiting for them - he'd been brought across the Atlantic by the Flash so they could make their final plans for the big operation in England. "Is everyone all right?" he asked.

When no one replied, his concern only grew.

Cessily kicked a table angrily. No one said anything. "I'm tired of being useless," she said bitterly. "Everything outclasses us here. EVERYTHING. Why did we even come? What good are we?"

"... The world needs better heroes," Power Girl said, her voice gentle.

"What?" Cessily asked.

"Something an old friend said to me, once. It's not about the strength of your powers, Cessily. It's about the strength of your heart." She held up a hand. "I know, I know, easy for me to say, right? "

Cessily nodded. It was. She was a Kryptonian. She was more than match for almost anything they faced, even here. Not about the strength of your powers her ass.

"But that's the thing," Power Girl said. "When all you're concerned with is power, you stop being a hero. If all that matters is power, then there ARE no heroes. We're not here to beat people up. You can't heal the world with violence. That's not the point. It's never been the point. It's not about power."

Cessily let out a breath. She was distantly aware that the others were all listening, now. "... What's it about?" she asked.

"What do you think?"

Cessily thought about it. "Doing the right thing?"

"What's the right thing?" Power Girl asked. "And why dress up in a costume to do it?"

Cessily shook her head. "I… I'm not sure. I guess I never thought about it." She hesitated a moment. "But… what good is it going to do to be a better hero if the bad guys are so much stronger than you that they can just, just kill you like you're nothing? What good is standing for ideals and trying to be an example of how the world can be better when the people standing against you are gods, or don't care, or are just going to shoot you dead?"

Power Girl started to reply, then stopped short, whatever she'd been about to say dying on her lips. "... I'm not sure I'm the right person to answer that," she admitted.

Cessily looked down, trying to hide her disappointment. Of course she wasn't. "Yeah," she said. "I figured."

Power Girl gestured to Captain America, who was leaning against the far wall. "But I'm pretty sure he is."

Cessily looked up and blinked.

"Do you mind, Captain?"

Captain America smiled faintly. "Not at all." He looked to Mercury. "I'm guessing it won't help much to tell you about my faith."

Cessily shook her head. "I was never religious."

Captain America nodded. "Right, as the world goes," he said, and he spoke as if he were quoting something, "Is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." He paused. "That's what you're about, isn't it?"

Cessily nodded. It sounded about right.

The intensity of Captain America's gaze made her swallow nervously. "The world doesn't have to be that way," he said. "It can be better. We can be better."

"But…"

"There comes a time when you have to decide who you are. Who you're willing to be. What your choices have made you, and will make you. A long time ago, I chose to live my life to make the world better than it is. Because I believe, among other things, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. And when those rights are denied, when terrible things happen to good people, when the innocent suffer, when the powerful spread death and misery because they can, when the whole universe seems to stand against you, when you stand alone before mad gods with every other hero fallen around you, even then, _especially _then, you plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, you stand up and you say, 'No more.' You fight for that better world. You show people something worth striving for. And sometimes, you lose. I've lost. I've lost fights, lost people, lost friends. Lost everything. Paid terrible prices. And I've kept going all the same. Kept fighting. Kept standing up for what's right."

Silence hung in the room for several seconds, and then, in a small voice, Cessily asked, "Is it worth it?"

Captain America looked her in the eye, and when he spoke, he spoke with a voice of absolute conviction: "Always."

END CHAPTER 10


	24. Interlude: Problems

Destination Unknown

by P.H. Wise

A BtVS Crossover Fanfic

Interlude: Problems

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is owned by Fran and Kaz Kuzui.

* * *

><p>The morgue was cold and quiet, and the autopsy room colder still. It was a sterile, empty place. Soft fluorescent lighting all but washed out every shadow over a grey tiled floor. The body lay covered by a sheet upon a steel autopsy table in the center of the room. Only the distant hum of refrigeration broke the empty silence of the place. High, opaque windows allowed little in the way of light into this basement room.<p>

A faint murmur of voices broke the empty silence. The voices grew louder. Presently the door swung open, and Wolverine, clad all in yellow and blue, an unlit cigar in his teeth, came walking through it, followed closely by Captain America, Iron Man, Spider Man, Prodigy, and Ms. Marvel. They seemed subdued as they entered the chamber; the warmth of the living was not a thing well suffered by a place for the dead.

Captain America's eyes took in the sight of the body covered by the sheet upon the table, and his expression became grim. "All right, Logan," he said. "You said you had something to show us."

Wolverine nodded. "We got problems. All of ya need to hear what happened at Project Superman."

Ms. Marvel spotted the body, and the others a moment later. Her gaze did not linger. "So it's true," she said, her tone flat, and clipped: deliberately professional. "Jess is dead." The others looked to her, and she offered further explanation, "The kids were talking. Word gets around."

Wolverine directed a questioning look Prodigy's way, and the boy was quick to shake his head. "It wasn't me, sir," he said.

Wolverine let out an annoyed snort. "Kids." He looked back to the group. "We got bigger problems than a dead Avenger."

Ms. Marvel's expression darkened. "The fact that we just lost a friend and a teammate seems like a pretty big problem to me." The words hung in the air heavily, silence lingering until she went on, "Except we're not down one teammate, are we? We're down two."

Iron Man's tone was carefully neutral. "The Sentry was an unstable element," he said. "As useful as he was to have on the team, it was only a matter of time before he had a meltdown. We're just lucky the X-Men were able to deal with him when it happened."

"Tony," Captain America said, disapproval clear in his voice. When Iron Man did not reply, he continued, "The Sentry was a valuable member of this team. He may have had problems, but he is and will continue to be missed."

Silence, punctuated only by the hum of refrigerators.

Wolverine got impatient. He turned to Prodigy. "Show 'em," he snapped.

Prodigy held out his hand in a fist, displaying the ring upon his finger for all to see.

"... is that what I think it is?" Iron Man asked, surprise audible even through the electronic processing of his voice.

"That depends, "Wolverine said. "Ya think it's a Lantern power ring?"

Captain America recognized it, then. "Kyle Raynor," he murmured.

"Rayner," Iron Man corrected.

Ms. Marvel let out a breath, her expression the look of one suddenly reminded of someone she hadn't thought of in years. "I remember."

Spider-Man frowned, though the others couldn't see it through his mask. "Uh. Color me clueless?"

"Rayner," Captain America said, accepting the correction. "Right. The Green Lantern." He turned to Spider-Man. "It was before you were with us. He was a member of the superhero team from an alternate Earth that we worked with during the Krona Incident. They were called the Justice League, and we now know they were from this world. Iron Man can give you access to the relevant files."

"Think of them as an alternate universe version of the Nova Corps," Ms. Marvel said.

"Yeah," Spider-Man said, "That doesn't help."

Prodigy interrupted the older heroes. "The important thing is that the ring was monitoring the situation at Project Superman, and it's the only reason any of us made it out alive. Project Zero was…" He trailed off, disturbed by the memories of the battle.

"He was like the Sentry," Wolverine said. "Maybe he was this world's version of him." That garnered troubled looks all around.

"He killed Spider-Woman," Prodigy said. "I can show the recording if you want to see it. But when she died, she stopped being Spider-Woman."

Ms. Marvel raised an eyebrow. "Stopped being Spider-Woman?" she echoed.

Wolverine pulled the sheet off the body on the table, revealing the dead female Skrull still wearing Spider-Woman's costume.

Captain America saw the implication immediately. He and Iron Man exchanged troubled looks.

Ms. Marvel's expression darkened even further. "Oh, hell," she muttered.

Spider Man looked surprised even through his costume. "Wait, She-Me's a Skrull?" he asked.

"That ain't all," Wolverine said. He looked to Prodigy. "Show them the other recording."

With an act of will, Prodigy did so.

Wolverine chomped down on his cigar. "Like I said. We got problems."

END

* * *

><p>Authors' note:<p>

So yeah. I'm working on the next chapter, and while I know that this scene belongs in it, I couldn't find a spot where it fit well or naturally. Hence, interlude.


	25. DU: Across the Rainbow Bridge, Part IV

Cole Cash - Grifter to most - was not, by and large, a happy man. He was black ops to the core. You had a dirty job that needed doing? He was your man. He'd been leading Team Seven against Teth-Adam's holdings in Egypt when everything had gone to hell. His team had died. He'd survived. Survived because of the intervention of a British superhero. Well, that wasn't strictly accurate: she was the British superhero. Britannia had gotten him out, taken him back to England. He'd recovered just in time for the Amazonian invasion.

Lucky him.

What he didn't understand was why she thought he was cut out to be her second in command in the Resistance. Cole's first command hadn't exactly gone well. Teth-Adam had decided to... make an example. It hadn't been pretty. Not that this was exactly pretty, either. He'd have preferred not to be spending most of his time in the service areas and side tunnels of the London Underground, but then, he'd have preferred a lot of things to his current situation. To make things worse, Penny had been injured - barely escaped from an Amazon hit squad - and the American contact she'd gone to retrieve had vanished without a trace. Lois Lane of the Daily Planet. Stuck in New Themyscira for the last thirty two weeks. Supposedly working for Cyborg. Gone.

All of which probably explained his bad mood when one of his scouts reported movement in the tunnel outside their headquarters.

They'd handle it quietly. Get snipers in position. Cut off the intruder's every escape route before they ever revealed their...

"I hear you lurking in the night!" Etrigan bellowed, his demonic stride taking him forward with hellish speed to confront the man in the tunnel. He leaped up and landed in a crouch atop the remains of a subway train, only a few meters from the stranger, "Shall Etrigan bring you to light?"

... Right. Or they could just right out into the open to challenge the intruder directly. That was also an option. Not for the first time, Cole wondered who he'd offended in his previous life to have to put up with so much shit in this one. They all piled out, then. Mrs. Hyde, the Canterbury Cricket, Lady Godiva, Jinny Greenteeth. Because hey, why not compound one tactical mistake with a dozen more?

The stranger wasn't anything terribly impressive. White. Short brown hair. The grin of a man who thinks he's being clever. He wore long leather duster over black pants and an oddly patterned green shirt.

"The hell are you supposed to be?" Cole asked.

The stranger nodded in acknowledgement to the assembled group. "The name's Madrox," he said. "Jamie Madrox. Lois Lane sent me."

Cole raised an eyebrow, though nobody could see it behind his mask.

Naturally, that was when the Amazonian kill team attacked. That was just the way his life went, these days. One minute the tunnel seemed relatively clear, the next, enchanted arrows and angry superhuman women. He had time to give Madrox a pitying look before the shit hit the fan: "Yeah?" he asked. "I hope you brought an army."

Madrox smirked. "Wait for it."

Then the Amazons were upon them, and the warrior-women had found them not in any kind of organized battle line, but in a disordered mob. They were dead. Oh, they'd make the Amazons pay for it. He'd have to cut loose with his powers to do it, but they'd pay. And they'd still all die.

At the head of the kill-team, Hawkgirl grinned as she swooped down to brain Jamie Madrox with her Nth metal mace. He saw it coming and was able to duck just before it would have opened his skull, but he couldn't avoid the bodyslam from the superhumanly strong flying woman. Grifter grimaced. So much for Jamie Madr... the fuck just happened? Instead of snapping like a twig the way he should have and then splattering against the wall... well, Madrox went flying into the wall, sure. But so did another. And another. And another. The impact split him into a hundred of himself, and when they started hitting the wall, those impacts doubled their number to two hundred.

Even Etrigan took note, pausing over a dead Amazon to stare at the Jamie Madroxes in complete surprise. "By the sin-soaked gates of Dis," he muttered, "what new devilry is this?"

The Madroxes flipped back to their feet in nearly perfect unison. Then all but one of them drew an odd-looking pistol from their jacket pocket and opened fire with a blazing volley of energy bolts. It was over less than a minute later: what had started as a textbook perfect ambush became the complete loss of all Amazonian forces. Apparently, the addition of two hundred men with energy weapons to the Resistance's side of the battle will do that.

Grifter replaced the empty magazine in his own gun, scanning the area for any additional targets. Finding none, he turned to the Madroxes. "... Thanks for the assist," he managed.

The one Madrox which hadn't fired his weapon grinned. "No problem," he said. A few dozen duplicates echoed him, "Any time."

Silence fell, punctuated only by the moans of the wounded. ... well. The moans of the wounded and the voice of a Madrox duplicate near the back of the group, who was in the middle of a sentence when it got quiet. "...have to wonder, If you and I - two Jamie Madroxes - had sex with each other, would that constitute incest or..." The duplicate trailed off as he realized that people were staring. "Hell of a time for it to get quiet," he muttered.

* * *

><p>Destination Unknown<br>by P.H. Wise

A BtVS Crossover Fanfic

Chapter 11: Across the Rainbow Bridge, Part 4

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is owned by Fran and Kaz Kuzui. Some of the text of this chapter is taken from the Flashpoint comic series. I don't own that, either.

* * *

><p>Karen woke up to the sound of someone humming. It was a man's voice. Young. She didn't recognize the song. Well, she woke up to that and to the sensation of being one giant bruise. It was hard to appreciate someone's voice when she was in pain - particularly since she was in pain so rarely these days. "... Ow." she said.<p>

"Don't try to sit up yet." She recognized Josh's voice, and when she opened her eyes, she saw him leaning over her, his golden skin gleaming in the light. She didn't try to sit up.

"How bad?" she asked.

Josh shrugged. "I've taken care of the concussion. Still working on the ribs. Your alien physiology is stubborn, otherwise I'd be done by now."

Karen nodded, and then immediately regretted it, as it sent a spike of pain through her to do so. She hissed, and Josh chuckled, shaking his head in bemusement. "Oh, sure," she muttered sourly. "Mock my pain."

"Sorry," he said. "I just haven't seen you hurt since..." He thought about it. "God, since you took that bullet for Laurie. I wasn't sure you could be hurt anymore."

She took in her surroundings, then. She was in an infirmary. The floors were old wood, once a rich reddish brown but faded now with age and wear. The walls were bare, and only the most basic monitoring equipment had been set up around her bed, which was as bare bones as it got: a steel frame on wheels with a mattress, stiff sheets, a blanket and a pillow. There were other beds here as well: perhaps a dozen of them evenly spaced on each side of the room with a walkway in between. There was a boy not much older than her lying in the bed next to hers, sleeping peacefully. He had raven hair, and despite his scrawny frame, and for all that she had never actually seen him before in person, she recognized his face instantly.

Kal-El.

A chill ran down Karen's spine.

Kara was sitting between the two beds, smiling faintly as she watched the interplay between Josh and Karen.

"I'm just as mortal as the next guy," Karen said. "It didn't help that I was fighting Doomsday." She blinked. "Oh my God, I fought Doomsday."

If Josh was bothered by the reminder of Karen's former gender, he showed no sign of it. "That you did," he said, except he attached no particular significance to it, and it was obvious from his tone. He paused. "I never thanked you for saving her," he said. He looked down. "I... if Laurie had died there..." He swallowed. "I haven't been a very good friend to..." He broke off, staring at the floor.

Karen had heard the rumors. It was hard not to at a place like Xavier's. Josh and Laurie had been dating. Except Josh had also been completely infatuated with Rahne, who had left to join X-Factor Investigations after Josh had restored her powers, and... yeah. OK. It was complicated, but it boiled down to Josh being kind of an asshole to Laurie who was completely in love with him, and him stringing her along despite the fact that he was more interested in someone else. It was a little weird seeing him like this, now; it ran completely counter to her previous opinions of the boy.

"Hey," she said. "It's OK. She's alive."

Josh nodded. "Thank you."

Karen's heart warmed ever so slightly. There were a dozen different things she wanted to say. 'I didn't do it for you,' was one. 'She's my friend,' was another. But what she ended up saying instead was, "You're welcome."

Josh smiled. An honest, happy, grateful smile. And seeing such an unguarded expression on his face was almost shocking to her - Josh was almost never completely unguarded.

"Hey," Kara said.

Karen glanced over at Kara. "Hey," she said. "How is he?" she asked, indicating the unconscious Kal-El.

"We'll find out in another second or two," Josh said. Then Karen felt the altogether disturbing sensation of her broken ribs popping back into place and knitting themselves back together. "There we go," Josh said, looking satisfied.

Karen lifted up the blanket and glanced downward to see if there was still any visible damage. ... and all she saw was breasts. She started to sit up, trying to get a better angle to see her ribs from, and she'd just about managed it when she remembered that Josh was still in the room. She pulled the blanket back up and scowled at him, her cheeks burning.

He laughed, but there was no mockery in it. "OK, if I hadn't been convinced that you used to be a guy before, I'm sold on it, now."

Kara rolled her eyes. "And you'd been doing so well," she said. "At least it's not my body you're doing it to anymore. ... Sort of."

If Karen could have sunk into the floor, she would have.

Kara pulled a spare New X-Men uniform and some undergarments out of a bag at her feet. "Doomsday wrecked the uniform I gave you," she said. "I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be impossible to do to a uniform made of unstable molecules, but I guess it is Doomsday we're talking about." She tossed the uniform and the bra and panties to Karen, who put them on with a burst of superspeed that was too quick for Josh to see more than a split-second blur.

Josh moved over to Kal-El and put his hand on the unconscious kryptonian's head. There was silence for about ten seconds.

"... Where's Lois?" Karen asked. "I figured she'd be here with him."

As if the words had summoned her, the door swung open and Lois Lane walked into the infirmary, dressed all in Asgardian mail, a sword emblazoned with literal runes sheathed at her side. And carrying two cups of coffee. That was probably an important detail, too.

"Ah," Karen said.

As she approached, Lois offered her extra cup to Kara, who took it with a grateful nod. "Hello, Karen," she said with a nod to Karen. "It's good to see you awake."

What exactly do you say when Lois Lane says something like that to you? "Uh... Thanks," Karen said, and tried not to sound as flustered as she actually was. OK. That was one possibility. Incredibly lame, but a possibility. Way to go, Karen

"How is he?" Lois asked.

"Physically, malnourished and suffering from long-term sleep deprivation," Josh replied. "I'm fixing that for him. Using some of that funky energy he's got in his freaky Kryptonian solar-battery cells to do it."

Lois raised an eyebrow. "Is that the technical term?" she asked.

Josh blushed, and both Karen and Kara grinned.

The changes in Kal-El's body became visible almost immediately: he grew. His growth, formerly stunted by his poor nutrition, seemed to correct itself all at once, his body filling out before their eyes until he looked like... well, a little bit more like Superboy than Superman, actually. His body was twenty, and it would be a few years before he'd look like Superman again.

"So what's the deal, White Mage?" Karen asked. "Can you wake him up?"

Josh blinked. "White Mage? Why would you call me..." he stopped in mid-sentence. "OK, yeah, that's accurate."

"He's not going to know any of us, is he?" Kara asked.

"That girl, Layla, she already woke up his memories of the original timeline," Lois said. "It was when your friends were fighting that monster outside the chamber. She thought it might wake him." She shook her head. "It didn't work."

Karen thought about it. "Well, he's in an enchanted slumber, so... you tried kissing him yet?" She glanced at Lois.

Lois gave her a dubious look. "We aren't living in a fairy tale," she said. "Besides, I'm pretty sure it has to be the prince kissing the princess to break the spell. I don't think it works the other way around."

"Couldn't hurt, could it?"

Lois pressed her lips together and looked at Clark's sleeping form. Then she shrugged. "OK. Sure. Why not." She went to his bedside and leaned over him, and her hair fell down to veil them as she gently brought her lips to his. She drew back a moment later.

No change.

Then Lois teared up. She wasn't crying yet, but her eyes were shining with unshed tears, and what little humor was left in the situation seemed to vanish. She kissed him again, and this time she meant it. She drew back from his lips just enough to break contact. "Please, Clark," she whispered. "You have to wake up! I need you." Her voice broke. When she spoke next, there was such love and such yearning in her voice that Karen began to feel as though she were intruding on something private. "Please come back to me," Lois said.

Nothing.

Lois drew back, and scrubbed at her eyes. "... It was a stupid idea, anyways," she muttered.

Clark opened his eyes. "Lois?" he asked faintly.

Lois Lane's whole face lit up with sudden and unexpected joy. "Clark?"

Kara smiled brilliantly as she gestured towards the door. "Come on," she murmured to Josh and Karen. "We should wait outside."

Clark sat up as Kara, Karen and Josh made their way out of the room.

Karen scrubbed at her own eyes as they shut the door behind them on the way out. "I knew it couldn't end like that," she said. "Pandora or no Pandora, it wasn't going to end like that. Not for them."

Kara smiled. "Of course it couldn't," she said. She looked Karen in the eyes, and there was a sense of weight to her words as spoke, "It's not going to end, Karen. It's never going to end for us. One day, you'll see."

* * *

><p>Inside the infirmary, Clark and Lois finally broke their kiss, and Clark looked at her with smile. "You look good," he said.<p>

"Alternate reality will do that to a girl," she replied with a wink. "That and I'm pretty sure these bodies are at least a decade younger."

"That's not what I meant," Clark said.

Lois smiled, and her smile was like the rising of the dawn, utterly transforming her face, erasing the care and the worry that had lingered there since this Crisis had begun. "I know what you meant," she said. A hundred things passed between them in that moment, the least of them what she said aloud; but even that was sincerely meant. "I'm happy to see you, too."

He rose to his feet, and brought her into his arms. "Have I mentioned how much I love you?"

Lois wiped away her tears, and the whole yawning gulf of memories that stood between their old world and this one seemed to open in her thoughts. "Not for the last twenty years," she said. She kissed him once more, and he kissed her back.

She didn't need to say it. He knew. But she said it anyways. "I love you, too."

And for Lois Lane and Clark Kent, for one shining moment, all that existed was each other.

* * *

><p>The final preparations took the better part of an hour. It felt strange to be this close to the end. This close to the resolution, one way or another. The waiting was the worst part. It didn't help that Karen had spent most of that hour trying to remember where that final Monitor guy had wound up at the end of Final Crisis, and whether or not it would be feasible to find him; she'd feel a lot better about the whole thing if they had... whatever it was that Monitor guy had called up to help at the end. Not that her memories of Final Crisis were particularly clear: it had seemed like a confused, muddled mess to her, though Jonathan had sworn that it was amazing if you read the tie-ins. He'd even offered to let her borrow his comics, once. She was kind of regretting not having done so. She'd mentioned the guy to the Flash as a potential ally, and he'd shaken his head, telling her that he'd already looked, and that Nix Uotan didn't appear to exist in this timeline.<p>

So yeah. She spent a lot of time waiting for the final preparations to be complete while other people talked and planned and discussed and were moved back and forth across the Atlantic by the Flash. Atlee, Prodigy, Rockslide, and Mercury had been in the first group taken across. Now, it was morning in Metropolis, she was sitting on the roof of Cyborg's hideout, and the previous night's storm had broken up into the most spectacular cloudy sky, and the sunlight on her skin felt beyond incredible. She almost didn't notice the approaching footsteps.

"Hey," Power Girl said.

"Hey yourself," Karen replied, not opening her eyes.

"Got a minute?" Power Girl asked.

Karen did open her eyes at that. She looked up. "Yeah, I guess. What's up?"

Power Girl grinned. "There's someone I want you to meet." She glanced toward the roof-access door. "Clark, you can come out."

Superman walked out onto the roof. How exactly he'd managed to reproduce his costume Karen didn't know, and sure, he was younger than he should have been, but holy Crom but Superman had just walked out onto the roof. Karen's heart leaped at the sight. She stopped. Her eyes widened, and her jaw dropped open. He was walking towards her through a sunbeam that had slipped through a gap in the clouds. He should have looked ridiculous in those blue and red tights, the S on his chest, the red boots, the cape. But something in the image was just right, and right on an elemental level.

He looked Karen over, but there was no sense of leering, no sense of sexual advance in it. She took a breath and let it out again, feeling as though she were being weighed, and under everything, despite everything, there was this gnawing fear that Superman was going to find her wanting.

Then he smiled a friendly smile. "You must be Karen," he said. "Kara's told me all about you." He held out a hand.

Karen's throat went dry. Her brain kicked into overdrive as a hundred different things she could say flashed through her thoughts. She wasn't going to fangirl this time. Not if she could help it. So she kept her composure, shook his hand and said, "It's an honor, sir." Then what he'd said sank in, and she looked to Kara. "You told him all about me?" she asked.

Power Girl nodded. "Not everything. I told him you had some secrets that weren't mine to tell. But you can trust him, Karen. He's Superman."

A giggle almost tore its way free from Karen's throat at those words. "Yeah," she said. "OK." She took another breath, and then another, and a third.

Superman looked her in the eye. "It's all right, Karen. We've all got secrets, and how you came to be isn't as important as what you choose to do. From what Kara tells me, you were the only reason she made it back here. You helped her when no one else could, and when push came to shove, you gave up your chance to return to your normal life in order to do the right thing. You've faced down cosmic level threats, and you fought Doomsday to rescue me. But more than that, I trust Kara's judgment. If Power Girl says that you've impressed her, that you're a sister to her, and that she's willing to adopt you into the House of L, then that's good enough for me."

Her heart grew warm within her chest, and she nodded. "Th, thank you." Those words felt wholly inadequate, but she meant them.

Then Captain America's voice came over the communicator: "Team PG, you are go."

"Team Power Girl?" Superman asked.

Power Girl grinned. "That would be us. Got a problem with it?"

Superman considered his answer. "I suppose it has a certain ring to it."

"Darn right it does," Power Girl said with laughter in her voice.

"Right," Karen said. "So what do we do?"

"Now?" Superman lifted up into the air, suddenly all business. "We save the day." He shot off towards the eastern horizon, and a second later, Power Girl and Karen followed. England - and destiny - awaited.

* * *

><p>If you'd asked him if he'd ever imagined that a trip to the moon would be in his immediate future, Prodigy would have laughed. Not that it was impossible - other X-Men had been there, after all - but it wasn't exactly the sort of place you could just zip off to for an afternoon. Unless, that is, you were a Green Lantern. It had taken all of twenty minutes to get here, and it had felt like a snail's pace. Prodigy knew he could go faster. Much, much faster.<p>

The ground was covered in a layer of dust that was like powder beneath his feet over the grey basalt that made up most of the immediate area, and the whole vast grey surface stretched out around him, the great crater Posidonius a few miles south of where he stood, and the rugged Montes Caucasus to the west. The sky was black, with the full Earth and the stars the only sources of illumination: despite the lack of atmosphere, the surface of the moon was more than reflective enough to ensure that you wouldn't see stars on the moon during the day, but it was night on the moon at the moment, and the sky was full of them. For one shining moment, his heart swelled, and he thought, 'Holy crap, I'm on the moon!' Then his concentration wavered, and Sinestro, his teacher and his opponent, made him pay for it.

Sweat beaded on Prodigy's brow as he struggled to maintain a clockwork construct of green energy. It had been like this for the last few hours. Despite his own misgivings about the alien, Sinestro had told him that it was time for a crash course in ring-wielding, and he couldn't afford to refuse. Now, power flowed through him in a way he'd never imagined possible before. They called it Will. Maybe it was, but it was altogether strange to think of himself as 'marshalling his will,' or 'willing something to happen' as distinct from actually taking action. And it wasn't really distinct, in any case. He chose, and as long as he maintained control over his impulses and actions, actively chose rather than simply reacted to stimuli, the ring responded.

His concentration flickered. The construct discorporated, and he staggered with the suddenly released effort of maintaining it.

The Earth-light gave the barest hint of color to the otherwise oppressive grey of Mare Serenetatis: the location Sinestro had selected for their training. Sinestro Thaal floated over him, now, frowning disapprovingly. "You must focus, David Alleyne," he said.

"I am focusing," Prodigy snapped. They'd been at this for hours, now. Then, before Sinestro could respond, he paused. He took a breath and let it out. According to everything he understood, letting his irritation, his anger dictate his actions was just as unhelpful to controlling the ring as allowing fear to do so. He could feel anger, and even act on it, but acting on it needed to be a conscious choice, not a blind reaction to emotional stimulus. "I am focusing," he said again, his voice calm.

Sinestro smirked. "So you are. Good. Remember that your power is only as strong as your will. If you cannot maintain your focus, you will be overcome. Now, defend yourself." With only that much warning, a lance of green light shot out from Sinestro's ring, and Prodigy barely got a shield up in time to block it.

It felt like standing in the path of a hurricane. The shield trembled, and Prodigy knew he couldn't hold it for long. Even so, his thoughts were racing. "Are all contests of power between Lanterns determined by force of will?" he asked.

"Not necessarily," Sinestro replied, not ceasing his attack, the power of his will slowly crushing Prodigy's barrier, "but the one with the stronger will is generally the victor in the same way that the larger and stronger fighter will generally win in a physical confrontation."

"Right." Prodigy angled his shield, then, not directly opposing Sinestro's power, not trying to stop it completely, but instead to deflect it. Immediately, the pressure on his shield fell to a manageable level. "Do the constructs we can create interact with traditional physics?"

"Observe," Sinestro said, and without visibly altering his position or making any additional effort, summoned two boulder constructs a thousand feet above them. Prodigy had just enough time to notice them on the HUD that his ring had provided and raise an eyebrow before Sinestro's ring flashed, and the moon's microgravity seemed swept aside in favor of a point directly at his own feet. Crushing weight dragged him downwards, knocking him flat. He felt as though his limbs were made of lead, and the boulder-constructs were falling faster and faster. They soon moved past what would have been terminal velocity without the increased gravity. .

Prodigy focused, feeling his emotions but not allowing them to rule him. Sinestro had just generated artificial gravity! … Falling boulders now, gravitational constants later. Rather than dispel the entire effect of Sinestro's construct, Prodigy countered it with just enough force to allow him to roll out of the way of the two boulders, and even that much was a titanic effort. No sooner had they hit the ground then he gestured, creating a massive energy construct mass-driver. An act of will brought one of the boulders into it. He didn't actually hear the discharge when the electromagnetic field accelerated the willpower construct to .22c and flung it at Sinestro, but the effort was like lifting a truck over his head with his unaugmented muscles, and he heard Sinestro's laugh as the boulder simply ceased to exist a bare millisecond before it could impact.

"You learn quickly, human," Sinestro said. "But using another Lantern's construct as a projectile is dangerous as best. It is sustained by his will, and it can be dismissed at any time, whether it be by the wielder or by the ring's own emergency override. Better to use one of your own. Or a natural object, if the enemy should prove resistant to the ring."

Prodigy felt exhaustion building, not in his muscles, but in his mind; he panted for breath all the same. "So physics plays a part."

"Indeed," Sinestro said, allowing his assault to cease and the whole of his effect to disperse. "A sufficiently strong will can use the ring to manipulate even the most fundamental forces of the universe. Gravity. Electromagnetism. The nuclear forces. Great care must be exercised. What is theoretically possible and what is practically attainable are not the same. Neither are what is possible and what is wise."

Prodigy nodded. "... I think I understand."

Sinestro smirked. "Show me."

He did.

* * *

><p>Later...<p>

Brilliant light danced around them in whorls of yellow and gold. Pulses of lightning traveled the length of the universe, and here, in the midst of everything, Irma's thoughts raced. She didn't understand what she was seeing: few could be said to understand the Speed Force, but there it was all around them both. Here and there, bands of angry red pulsed malignantly, each red band bordered by millions of strange, glowing black dots.

"How much longer?" Irma asked.

"We're traveling in time," Hot Pursuit replied. "I don't think time means much here!"

A shadow seemed to pass over them. Irma looked up. For a split second, she thought she saw… she wasn't sure what. A figure, maybe. She had just enough time for a quizzical head-tilt before the Cosmic Motorcycle emerged from the Speed Force, trailing streams of crackling yellow lightning in its wake. They arrived next to the construction site for the Shard: an 87 story tall skyscraper due to complete construction some time in the next year. Or it would have been, if not for the Themysciran invasion. The Shard construction site had been abandoned for almost a year now, and the elements had not been kind to it, nor had the armed resistance to the invasion been kind to the surrounding city. There had been battle, and recently: smoke choked the air, and lent an angry orange-yellow haze to the setting sun. There was a shimmer in the air even beyond smoke: something like the surface of a soap bubble. London Bridge Station was held by the resistance, now, and they pulled up in front of it just in time to hear familiar voices.

"Hey, I hear you're a speedster, too," Kid Flash was saying. "How fast can you go?"

Noriko glanced sidelong at Kid Flash. "Um, four hundred miles an hour or so. Why? How fast can you go?"

Kid Flash raised both eyebrows, started to say something, then seemed to reconsider his words, "I guess I'm pretty fast. Speed isn't everything, though."

Noriko gave him a look. "How fast?"

A few of the other New X-Men were moving about in the train yard, as were a number of civilians.

"... Eh…" Kid Flash looked uncomfortable. "I've never been able to go faster than the speed of light, I guess?"

Nori blinked. "... Ah." She looked down.

"Hey, four hundred miles an hour is pretty good, too!"

"Yeah," Nori said, her tone flat. "Thanks."

"Nori," Irma said.

Noriko looked up. "Irma! Hey! You said you might show up. I'm supposed to tell you that when you said the south end of the bridge, you actually meant the south end of the bridge."

"Thanks, Nori," Irma said. She paused, then looked at Kid Flash. "Really, Kid Flash?" she asked, her tone disapproving.

Kid Flash got defensive. "Hey, it's not my fault her powers suck. Crappy super-speed and the ability to shoot lightning and accidentally break electronics? Please." Then he seemed to realize what he'd just said. His eyes widened. "Um, that is…"

Noriko glared at the boy, for all that he was only about a year younger than him, and stood up straight. "I'm electrokinetic. Still in training. There's probably a hundred other applications of my powers I haven't figured out yet."

A couple emotions flickered across Kid Flash's face: embarrassment, regret, sullen stubbornness, defensiveness, all almost too fast to be seen. He crossed his arms and looked away. "Whatever," he said.

Noriko shook her head, slipping into her native Japanese in her irritation. "God, what a brat," she muttered. Then she continued in English, "Don't you have a planet to evacuate or something?"

Irma and Patty exchanged glances. "We're… just going to go," Patty said, looking really uncomfortable.

The shimmer in the sky grew more pronounced as they drew closer to the bridge. The streets that Irma could see were mostly deserted, with only hints of movement here and there. A sense of watchfulness hung over the city, and sections outside of the strange shimmering bubble were burning. Some buildings had collapsed. Others had huge ugly holes in them. To the east she could make out Tower Bridge, and its northernmost tower had fallen into the Thames; its fall had taken out most of the drawbridge portion that stood between the two, rendering it impassable.

Up ahead, standing in the middle of the road and murmuring a chant under his breath, stood a man in blue and gold, cape flowing in a breeze that touched nothing else, a distinct golden helmet concealing his features. Almost instinctively, Irma reached out to touch his mind. What she met was a wall of power so vast that she hesitated to probe at it, even empowered with a shard of the Phoenix.

Not far from where the man in blue and gold stood, Prodigy, Heimdall, and a large black man covered in cybernetics of every sort awaited flanked by Valkyries on either side. Cables and wiring and strange glowing devices of every description sprawled every which way across the road. Here and there, technicians were already at work connecting parts: at the center of the work stood a large empty circle.

Prodigy nodded as Irma and Patty approached. He looked tired, and his costume was different: a form fitting green and black that showed his impressive physique beneath it in ways that Irma found most satisfactory. It had an empty white circle centered on his chest. "Irma," he said. "Hot Pursuit."

"Prodigy," she replied. "Like the new uniform."

Prodigy blushed ever so slightly. "Thanks. You have the parts?"

Irma nodded, and she and Patty quickly unloaded the equipment. "It's all yours," Patty said cheerfully.

Prodigy let out a breath. "Thanks. OK. Time to get to work."

Even as Team Prodigy began their effort, Irma smiled. "OK," she said. "No more time travel." … and as soon as she'd said it, she knew she was wrong. The conversation with her future self flashed into her memory. The conversation with Layla. The meeting in Metropolis.

"Irma," Patty said, "We haven't hit the other side of the time loop yet."

Irma shut her eyes. She felt a cold, prickling sensation moving up and down her spine. She didn't voice the fear that she felt. The suspicion that they'd messed everything up.

"We ran into Layla on the surface in Metropolis. We already know that she was never on the surface. They were underground. She was underground."

Irma opened her eyes. Something rippled against the barrier that the man in gold was projecting to protect the bridge and its surroundings. An explosion, but strangely muffled. It didn't penetrate the field. A few seconds later, several dozen more joined it, and then silence. Artillery. Someone was firing artillery at them. No sign of her distress showed in her expression. She looked at Patty. "What happens if we just ignore the paradox and keep going?" she asked.

Patty stared at the rippling barrier, her jaw dropped open.

"Patty?"

Nothing.

"Hot Pursuit?"

Patty blinked. "What?"

"Well, we intend to rewrite time anyways, don't we? What happens if we just ignore the paradox and keep going?"

Patty stared at Irma. "Chronovores eat the timeline and none of us ever existed?" she said, making it sound like a question.

Patty didn't know. "And that's bad," Irma said.

Patty nodded. "Imagine a twinky thirty five feet long weighing approximately six hundred pounds." The joke sounded hollow. Patty didn't know. Irma could see it in her thoughts.

"You're the expert on time travel," Irma said, a hint of nervousness entering her voice.

Patty stared at her, her eyes wide. "I stole this equipment from a police evidence locker," she said, her voice not quite wavering with fear. "But when we reset this timeline, we're going to be doing it from the relative safety of another universe that won't itself be affected by that reset. If we ignore a paradox here and now, we won't have that buffer between us, and I have no idea what could happen."

Irma thought about it, taking slow, regular breaths as she forced back her own fear.. "We need to find Layla."

It didn't take long. Five minutes. Five minutes of growing dread. She was in the train station where the Resistance had established its fortifications.

Cross-beams overhead and broken glass all around, but Layla sat in the midst of it all, unconcerned, watching the dappled sunlight play across the station. A train lay on its side in the yard, and resistance fighters went to and fro with purpose in their steps.

"Layla, " Irma called.

"Looking for me?"

"Yeah." Layla's thoughts were strange. There was an echo to them that made them seem weirdly distant.

Layla arched an eyebrow." Go on, " she said.

Irma let her telepathy slide off of Layla's thoughts, repulsed by that weird echo. She couldn't tell what the other blonde was thinking without giving herself a headache.

"We think we broke our time-loop," Hot Pursuit said.

Layla stopped. She just stopped. Tension grew in her bearing, disbelief upon her face, "You broke your time loop, " she echoed.

Irma thinned her lips and nodded. "Apparently," she said.

"Why don't you start at the beginning, " Layla said.

They did.

Afterwards, Layla looked thoughtful. "OK," she said, "so you wound up on an American street. Are you sure it was American?"

Irma and Hot Pursuit nodded, and Hot Pursuit said, "It looked like Metropolis."

"Where you spoke to me, and I mentioned that Power Girl was going to be here in less than a minute. Except at the time, I was actually down inside Project Superman trying to wake up Power Girl's cousin."

Irma nodded.

Layla sighed. "Well, the solution is obvious enough." She climbed on the back of the motorcycle with Irma and Hot Pursuit. It was awkward, but not as awkward as when Kid Flash was doing it: Layla was small for her age.

Hot Pursuit shot Irma an an annoyed look. "I told you this was a bad idea," she said.

"It got us the teleportation gate, didn't it?" Irma asked. She paused, then. Perhaps some admission of wrong would help smooth things along. What would Karen say? It came to her quickly. "For the record, the next time I decide that time travel is an amazing way to solve all my problems, shoot me."

Layla nodded gravely. "So say we all," she deadpanned.

* * *

><p>It had been the Thames Estuary, once, before Tara Markov had used her power over the earth to raise the British Isles. It had been a response to the mega-tsunami sent out by the Atlanteans which had sunk most of western Europe, and though the seismic shockwaves of the raising had been felt the world over, it had allowed the United Kingdom - now New Themyscira - to weather the storm. But not all of it. Some areas on the coasts had not fared well: most of the region that had once stretched from Southend-on-Sea to Foulness Island had fallen into the North Sea. On the southern side, a good half of the Isle of Sheppey was simply gone, fallen into the waters with all who had lived there. The cliffs were irregular brown Silurian mudstone shot through with ribbons of old red sandstone, the work of geologic epochs upended by the metahuman will, mingled and on display for all to see.<p>

Three figures floated in midair above the waterfall that took the waters of the Thames down into the North Sea a five hundred feet below. Superman. Power Girl. Karen. The vast stretch of sea beyond the coastline stretched out almost to the horizon, and though the cold could not touch her, Karen shivered all the same. It was a strange thing for her, being here, waiting for the arrival of the Atlantean army. The waiting was the worst: knowing they were out there, that they were coming, but not when they would appear, not when battle would begin. Despite all that she'd been through, part of her was screaming at her to get the hell out of here and let the real heroes handle it. Even after all she'd been through, she was afraid. Some part of her still insisted that facing an army was insane. That one person couldn't DO that. It must have showed, because Superman put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up. He didn't say anything. He just floated there, confident, powerful, utterly determined to stop the whole Atlantean army by himself if he needed to. He nodded to her, and after a moment's hesitation, she nodded back. The fear was still there, but it wasn't going to control her. Superman and Power Girl believed in her. That was enough for now. Hell, they were Kryptonians. They were each at the peak of their power. Three Kryptonians against practically anything wasn't just an unfair fight, it was a curbstomp waiting to happen, wasn't it? That made her start to feel better.

The moon was rising, though the sun had not yet set, and Karen looked to her companions. "I don't want to question Cap's plan or anything, but doesn't all three of us working as a unit together seem like overkill? What exactly is he expecting us to have to deal with that requires all three of us?"

Power Girl and Superman exchanged looks. "Aquaman," Power Girl said, and Superman nodded in agreement.

Karen blinked. "You're kidding, right? Can't either one of you take him by yourselves?"

"If all we wanted to do was kill him, sure," Power Girl said.

"Oh."

Superman nodded. "Now you're getting it. The three of us against the entire Atlantean army, led by Aquaman."

Karen swallowed. "Oh."

Superman went on. "Arthur is the bearer of the Trident of Neptune. That name is not artistic licence. Add in a few hundred Atlantean sorcerers and thousands of soldiers with enchanted weapons and armor on top of that, plus an unknown number of meta-Atlanteans, and you can start to see what we're going to be up against."

Power Girl grimaced. "Have I mentioned lately that I hate magic?"

"Not lately, no," Superman said.

"I really hate magic."

Superman smirked. "Good to know."

The waters of the North Sea began to roil. Something was rising from below. Superman took a breath, determination settling onto his bearing. "Well," he said, "Here goes everything."

Everything? What did he mean by that? Karen raised an eyebrow. "Don't you mean 'nothing?'"

Superman looked at Karen. "No. I don't."

The roiling mass of water expanded, churning up silt from deep below, turning the ocean brown and white as the unknown continued to rise. Karen understood, then. The weight of situation settled oppressively around her.

Superman continued to speak calmly. "I understand you've got experience fighting as part of a group," he said.

Training with the New X-Men. The Danger Room. A thousand memory-images of training sessions flashed through her thoughts in the space of a second. Karen nodded.

"Good," Superman said. "Use that. If Arthur won't listen to us and it comes to a fight, don't let them overwhelm you. Watch out for me and for Power Girl, and we'll watch out for you in turn."

Power Girl spoke next. "If you get in trouble and we aren't there, call out, and respond if we do the same. Otherwise, follow my lead. Once they realize what they're dealing with, they'll try to separate us. We'll be easier targets if they succeed. Don't let them."

The ground began to shake.

Superman nodded in agreement. "Be careful. We don't want them dead. Judging how much power you can safely put behind a punch can be difficult. If you aren't sure if they can take it, it's better to throw a punch that's not strong enough than to kill someone by accident. We only need to delay them long enough for the others to finish their preparations in London."

Karen swallowed. "Right. OK. At least they can't fly, right? That's something."

Then the first great water-dragon lifted its titanic head from the roiling sea. Then another. Then other things, things less easily identifiable. Things rose from the depths and took to the sky in a spray of water from barnacle-encrusted wings. Things rose like titanic crustaceans whose glowing hearts kindled into flame as they were exposed to the air. Great underwater beasts arose which had never seen the world of air, things of shell and bone and writhing, hooked tentacles. Before them came thousands of Atlantean soldiers clad in golden, scaled armor, some bearing swords or tridents along with shell-like shields, others carrying strange guns that seemed forged from living coral. As the earthquake rumbled with greater and greater power, cracks racing through the cliffside, Arthur of Atlantis came up from the depths, the Trident of Neptune in his hands.

"... Oh." Karen said.

Superman looked down upon the army with an expression of grim resolve. "Well, here's hoping they listen to reason."

They had barely gotten the Cosmic Motorcycle into the alley when they heard the distinctive crackle of the Cosmic Motorcycle emerging from the Speed Force. Their past selves had arrived, and just in time: Layla was waiting for them out on the side of the road. It was tempting to watch. Tempting and potentially dangerous: just because they hadn't noticed their future selves here last time didn't mean that they wouldn't be noticed if they poked their heads out. In the distance, they could hear the sounds of Karen's battle against Doomsday.

"Hey Layla," a voice very much like Phoebe and Celeste's called. It took a split second for Irma to recognize it as her own; it sounded different coming from the outside and not vibrating through her own skull. Not that she'd seriously expected it to sound exactly the same as what she heard when she spoke, but it was still odd in the way that listening to a recording of your own voice was always odd. She wasn't about to mess things up even more by watching herself do things she'd already done: Irma and Hot Pursuit stayed out of sight in the alley until the conversation on the street came to an end.

"I've got a message from you," Layla said. "You told me you need to talk to yourself right away. After that, you better get going. If you're here too long, Power Girl's going to see you, and you said that you left before she got here."

Irma's own voice filtered in from the street. "Thanks Layla," she said. "Tell me I said thanks, too."

"Already did," Layla replied.

In the alley, Irma rolled her eyes. Time for the mental contact. She braced herself, but it didn't make it feel any less weird. At least the weird mental resonance made it impossible to tell exactly where the other was by telepathy alone.

*Hey, me. How're things?* Irma asked.

*Hey, myself." Irma replied. It was hard to tell which one of them was sending what, even for her. When a mental voice is exactly like your own in every way, things got confusing quickly. Get confusing quickly? One of those.

*Tell me about it,* an Irma sent.

*Let's just get this over with as quickly as we can.* Irmasent. *Tell me where to take the supplies we stole from Brainiac.*

*OK, first you need to find Booster Gold. He's in Coast City nine hours and fifteen minutes ago. He'll be able to tell you what they are and what they do, so that I'll know what they are and what they do and can tell the others, got it? After that, take them to London bridge. Southern end. Twelve hours from now. I've already told Prodigy and Cyborg to expect you.*

*Cyborg?*

*Spoilers.*

*Why don't you just tell me what they are and what they do?*

*Because that's not how it happened.*

*... I'm starting to hate time travel.*

*This was your idea.*

*Yours, too.*

*Don't remind me.*

The link was severed, and Irma rubbed at her forehead. "That conversation was just as annoying from the other side of it," she muttered.

Patty raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Nevermind."

They gave it another couple of minutes, and then Hot Pursuit started up the Cosmic Motorcycle and took them both out of the alley to meet up with Layla. "All right," Hot Pursuit said with a grin. "Now all we need to do is go back to the future and meet up with the others so we can reset this entire timeline to the way it's supposed to be. Hopefully without Chronovores making us never have existed."

Irma frowned. "Is there really any such thing as…" that was as far as she got. Something struck her from behind, and Irma went down. She couldn't breathe. She gasped, and the air wouldn't come. Panic threatened to set in. She couldn't breathe! No. No, damnit. She was better than that. She was Irma Cuckoo, and panic was beneath her.

A flash of yellow and red. Hot Pursuit let out a strangled gasp as Professor Zoom, in his full Reverse-Flash costume, cruel-eyed and grinning like a madman, blurred into view, his hand already clasped around Hot Pursuit's throat. "This feels familiar," he murmured. "Does it feel familiar to you, too, Ms. Spivot?"

Hot Pursuit struggled for breath, and he let her take one before he began to choke her again. "Professor Zoom…" she managed.

Irma still couldn't breathe. She tried to stand up, but the world was still spinning. She forced herself to calm down, forced herself to focus on breathing.

"I'm actually delighted to find you here, my dear," Zoom said conversationally. "Now I can leave your dessicated corpse for Barry to find after all."

Layla started to get up from the motorcycle, and Hot Pursuit struggled for another breath. She got it, but only because Professor Zoom allowed it. "No!" she said. "We have to… we have to set things right!"

It was better now. Irma's breath was coming back. Less short and gasping. She could think again. The world wasn't spinning quite so much anymore. Almost there. She looked up.

Zoom gestured with his free hand, sending a small whirlwind out at Layla that knocked both her and the cosmic motorcycle to the ground. "I'll get to you, girl," he said absently, his focus never leaving Patty. "I am setting things right. I'm removing your presence from the timeline. Did you think you hadn't been noticed?" He smiled widely. "Goodbye, Ms. Spivot."

Red lightning crackled around the hand at her throat, and Patty Spivot aged. She went from late twenties to thirties to forties to fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties and beyond, skin wrinkling, crow's feet deepening, blotches appearing, hair bleaching to white and growing thin, and then… and then she died. Zoom dropped the ancient, dessicated corpse that had only an instant before been a living, breathing woman, and it broke apart with a sound like tearing parchment, spilling dust across the Metropolan street. He turned to Irma. "You next, I think."

There was a crackle of lightning as the Cosmic Motorcycle discorporated into something like a vibrant orange-yellow nightstick. Layla scrambled to pick it up.

Irma's eyes went flat. Cold fury filled her. She marshalled her telepathic might. "You're going to pay for that," she hissed, and even as she did, she lashed out at the man with everything she had.

He was faster. In the time it took her to speak, in the time it took her neural impulses to trigger her powers, Professor Zoom had already seized her by the throat, red lightning crackling from his hand as something dark and awful surged through her body. The telepathic effort withered even as she did. She ached, more and more, a deep, awful weariness flooding through her. Her bones ached, and she felt colder and colder as she went from teenager to middle-aged to elderly in the space of a heartbeat, and then…

She died.

Irma Cuckoo died.

Although separated by a dimensional barrier that muted their link to the tiniest awareness of the other's presence, Phoebe awoke in the middle of the night screaming in horror at the awful, yawning emptiness that waited where her sister's presence had been. It had happened again. It had happened again. Their sister was dead. Their other self was dead. Gone.

"No…" Celeste whispered, and the word tasted like ashes.

Tears flowed down identical cheeks on faces with identical expressions of grief. But there was nothing they could do. Nothing. Their sister was gone. Dead. Some X-Men had a free pass for resurrections. The Cuckoos didn't.

The Cuckoos didn't. … didn't… have…

Anger flared within twin hearts. "No," they said as one, and this time it didn't sound like a vain denial. Within them, the Phoenix stirred.

On Flashpoint Earth, Layla stared in horror at Irma's corpse as it landed next to Patty's. She held the Cosmic Motorcycle's control rod between her and Zoom as if it were the only thing in the universe that could keep her alive. "Why are you doing this?" she asked.

Zoom scoffed. "My answer would mean nothing to you."

A faint light. A warmth. Like life. Like fire. Like called to like across dimensional barriers. The astral forms of Phoebe and Celeste alit upon the street beside their dead sister, and Irma's body began to glow.

Like called to like. Something else. The Phoenix but not. An entity which was the source of all life. A twin, but not, buried in the Earth's core; the pure light of Creation unbroken, containing within it every possible shade of the Emotional Spectrum. A connection was made. A resonance began to build. Phoenix fragments and the Life Entity.

Irma Cuckoo of Earth 616.

Liv-

Nothing. An interruption in the flow of power. Something was preventing it from bringing her back.

Irma Cuckoo of Earth 616.

Liv-

The same interruption. Power too similar to its own. The resonance built, stronger and stronger, Phoebe and Celeste and Irma and the Phoenix and the Life Entity, building and building like thunder, like the oncoming storm.

"Is this still about Barry Allen?" Layla asked.

Professor Zoom laughed. "It's always about Barry Allen. About making him suffer. But killing the three of you? That it will hurt Barry is only a bonus."

Layla's eyes narrowed. "So you're working for Pandora?"

Professor Zoom's amusement snapped off as if it had never been. "I am no minion, girl," he said coldly. "We have an understanding, that is all. Now, time to die."

"Agreed."

Zoom raised an eyebrow. "Agreed?" He looked at her suspiciously for a split second. "You're trying to stall me."

Like a cresting wave, the resonance between Phoenix and Entity reached its tipping point, power magnified again and again. Fire filled the air. A vast Phoenix raptor erupted around Irma's body, the costume of the Dark Phoenix forming anew. Every tear was mended, every bloodstain suddenly gone. Life returned to her and her eyes opened, blazing with fire as her body reverted from old woman to teenager without passing any stage between. Her voice was like thunder, like inevitability: "I… AM… PHOENIX!"

Professor Zoom whirled to face the threat, his eyes wide. "Impossible!"

Layla backed away from the heat of it, not bothering to hide her grin. "You done goofed."

A spectral firebird seemed to flicker on Phoenix's either side. Professor Zoom didn't wait for her to attack: he flashed forward once more, seizing her by the throat, heedless of the agony of plunging his hand into her aura, heedless of the third degree burns. Red lightning crackled once more as he channeled the negative speed force into the Phoenix. He held nothing back this time: he aged her a thousand years, a million years, all in the space of an instant.

The Phoenix was utterly unchanged. Zoom met her gaze. "Why won't you die?" he hissed.

"I am life," she said. "I am fire." Her power flared, building once more upon the resonance between the Phoenix and the Life Entity. A pulse went through her aura, and Zoom was thrown backwards, his right arm burned to ashes, completely and utterly gone, and the rest of him covered in burns.

That was when Layla brained him with the control rod. It was designed to draw in the Speed Force, to use it as its power source, and could, under the right circumstances, drain velocity from someone connected to the Speed Force and use that to immediately supercharge its own speed force tank. It was not, however, designed to interact with the Reverse Flash's Negative Speed Force.

The universe went wonky.

Red light pulsed within the orange-yellow nightstick that was the Cosmic Motorcycle's control rod, and thousands upon thousands of crackling, glowing black dots seemed to pour out of it, lighting up the street with their darkness made visible, and it clung to the street, to the buildings, to the crowd of onlookers filming the whole thing on their cell phones. Then the control rod shattered into fragments of light, and Layla clenched her eyes shut just before a bright red and yellow flare of energy went off in front of her. Against the red-hot darkness behind her eyes, she briefly saw… something. An armored figure all in black, moving swiftly towards her on… skis? That couldn't be right. She opened her eyes, and the vision was gone as quickly as it had come.

Professor Zoom - the Reverse Flash - clutched at the charred stump that had been his arm only a few seconds before. "You… bitches…" he hissed. "You don't kill me! You DON'T! If anyone kills me, it's him. It has to be him." He rose to his feet, glaring hatred at Layla and at Phoenix. "I'm not going to die here. Not when I'm finally free! Not when I no longer need Barry Allen!"

The Phoenix considered him with pitiless eyes. "Burn, Eobard Thawne." she said. "Burn and die. So says the Phoenix."

Zoom embraced the negative speed force. … He tried to. His mind sent the command to his body to do so. Nothing happened. The hit from the control rod had temporarily disrupted his connection. He didn't have his speed! His eyes widened. "NO!"

The Phoenix unleashed her fire, and he was consumed, reduced to ashes before his scream had finished fading away.

Dissonance. Discord entered the resonance. The Life Entity's had a purpose for Professor Zoom. It had not returned his life only for that purpose to be denied. "Eobard Thawne of Earth. Live."

The white light came, and Zoom gasped as he was reborn within it, his uniform transformed, shining white, the white lantern emblem blazing upon his chest. "What…" he began.

"No," the Phoenix said, her fires consuming him once again.

Discord. Anger. Resonance building dangerously. More insistent now. Its counterpart would not undo what it had set in motion. "Eobard Thawne of Earth. Live."

Another burst of white light. Another rebirth. Zoom's eyes wide in terror. "... is happening…"

Anger growing. Rage. "Burn," she commanded, her enemy once more reduced to ashes.

"Eobard Thawne of Earth."

"STOP!" the Phoenix cried. "I WILL NOT ALLOW THIS!"Another peak. A low rumble rising. The Earth itself began to shake, glass shattered, rained down all around, people staring in awe. The breaking point came hurtling towards them.

"LIVE," the Entity said even as Phoenix cried, "BURN!"

Like strove with like, and the connection shattered. Paradox roiled about them, and the very walls of the Flashpoint itself into which all possible futures had fallen, shook. Within her Sanctum Sanctorum, Pandora herself took note, her eyes widening as she saw the thread by which her plan hung. There was a flash of white fire, and a pulse of raw power raced out across the universe. The whole universe, in signs that could be read from the Milky Way to the Source Wall. And there in the darkness, feasting upon the carcasses of slain worlds, the Black Lanterns recognized the power of their ancient foe. The Life Entity. The Phoenix. Their power so similar to each other's in their essential nature. And the the Black Lanterns saw. Nekron saw. And all across the universe, the Black Lanterns changed course, abandoning battles, abandoning whole worlds, each of them blazing a trail of light years.

The Black Lanterns were coming to Earth.

Every. Single. One.

When the light faded, Professor Zoom was gone. The street around the Phoenix was charred and blackened. The connection was broken. The resonance which had granted her the full power of the Phoenix was gone, now. Patty Spivot's corpse had burned away in the fires, and no sign of her remained but for the helmet that Layla held.

The Phoenix descended to the ground, one physical form and two astral forms united in will. Then she passed out and collapsed in a heap, and the astral forms vanished. The firebird aura snapped out, and Layla Miller, her eyes wide and jaw dropped open, had nothing at all to say.

END CHAPTER 11

Next: Across the Rainbow Bridge, part 5, wherein we finally end the Flashpoint arc.

Also, it's time for Karen to have an actual superhero name. I'd never actually intended for Nightwing to be her permanent one (but instead one she tries out and finds doesn't really work for her), but now that it comes time to pick one, I find myself at a loss for what to call her. Anyone got any suggestions?


	26. DU: Across the Rainbow Bridge, Part V

Destination Unknown  
>by P.H. Wise<br>A DCU Crossover Fanfic

Chapter 12: Across the Rainbow Bridge, Part 5

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is owned by Fran and Kaz Kuzui. Some of the text of this chapter is taken from the Flashpoint comic series. I don't own that, either.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Eight Months Ago…<strong>_

The earth convulsed, and Europe fell. Cities were reduced to rubble by the tectonic upheaval: Venice fell into the sea. Barcelona fell. Rome, destroyed. The Vatican City, gone, the prayers of those who dwelt therein unheeded, though not unheard. Half of Berlin collapsed. The dikes in the Netherlands burst apart, and flood waters raced inland in their wake, washing away city and countryside with equal indifference. Millions died in those first terrible moments, with millions more to come. And on the western coast of Wales, near St David's, Queen Diana of Themyscira stood with her assembled people, a nation of refugees now without a home after the sinking of their paradise, looking out upon the oncoming tsunami. It was still miles away, but the sight of it brought a chill to her heart. With her supernaturally acute eyesight, she had just watched the destruction of Ireland. All of it, gone, washed away by the oncoming wall of water.

Artemis of Bana-Mighdall swallowed, but no other sign of fear escaped her at the sight. "Our diviners report seismic trauma across the entire European continent, my Queen."

This was Arthur's wrath. The sheer _scale_ of it was mind-boggling. He was really prepared to destroy all of Europe for revenge? Just to kill her? The thought of all the innocent people who would die in this… this deluge… "Damn you, Arthur," Diana murmured. "Would you see us all consumed by your oceanic realm?"

At Diana's side, a young blonde woman with violet eyes and a brown and tan uniform cried out in pain.

Even with the oncoming tsunami, Diana - Wonder Woman - turned her concerned gaze to the young woman. "Terra?" she asked. "Are you all right?" It was a small thing to be concerned with, a tiny thing, but not meaningless. Even in the face of the utter destruction of everything she had ever known, never meaningless. Not to her.

Tara Markov grimaced, and spoke through teeth clenched against her pain, "It's my brother. Our… our connection allows me to share his pain. Gods, they're using Brion to do this! They're using his powers, and it's killing him!"

"It's killing us, too," Artemis muttered.

The tsunami rushed forward, and the sound of the oncoming surge of water grew, building upon itself until it was all consuming.

"Great Hera," Diana said, and for the first time, there was despair in her voice. "All is lost."

"No," Tara said, clenching her fists, power gathering around her. "It doesn't end this way. Not while I have a shred of power left. I will NOT permit this!" The ground heaved beneath their feet, and most of St. David's was pounded to rubble in the tumult. And then the whole island began to rise in the face of the Tsunami. Up, up, up it went, rising even as the water broke upon it. All of Wales rose, and England with it. The central mass of the U.K. sheared off and upwards along the line of the Scottish lowlands. Scotland drowned less than a minute later.

All of England and all of Wales lifted more than half a mile to clear the rising sea.

"Terra!" Diana yelled, "Terra, you have to stop! Before you kill yourself!"

Tara Markov collapsed, heaving for breath, her face covered in sweat. Diana caught her before she could hit the ground. "... There, my queen," Tara murmured. "Your new… Themyscira."

_**Now…**_

Tara sat on the edge of the water on side of the Victoria Memorial, staring at the ground, deep in thought. This place had become Diana's capitol building: the old royal family of England had been deposed, removed, exiled to an estate in Wales. That had been a mistake. One she was sure Diana would never have made if not for… She sighed. Things were bad, now. The resistance had been a tiny thing. It might have remained a tiny thing but for how things had been handled, with Diana still in shock and hotter heads making decisions in her stead. The old Queen of England, Elizabeth II herself, had stood her ground before the Amazons and told them in no uncertain terms what they could do with her occupation. It had been a little magnificent.

Amazons patrolled the grounds, now. She herself was always guarded, day and night. For without her to counter her brother's powers, New Themyscira would fall within a day. He had been coming closer for the last several days, and her sense of him grew ever stronger as he did. But he wasn't the only thing approaching. There was something else. An echo. A power drawing near that felt… she wasn't sure. Whatever it was, it wasn't in pain, so at least there was that much. There had been several assassination attempts. Atlantean agents seemed to infiltrate the palace on a weekly basis, though none had succeeded thus far. Tara wasn't sure if that meant that Amazonian security was just that bad, or that Atlantean infiltration teams were just that good, nor was she entirely sure which was the more worrying thought, but it was better than being alone. Better than being abandoned, like she was when…

Complex, troubling emotions bubbled up from within her at the thought, and her train of thought stopped in its tracks. Abandoned? That hadn't happened. She'd never been…

Tara's thoughts broke off entirely as she sensed something approaching from below. Something carving its way through the very earth, and sealing the wound behind it as if it had never been. The echo. The echo was coming here. Was this another assassination attempt? Something else entirely? Better safe than sorry. She rose to her feet. "Guards!" she called.

No sooner was the word out of her mouth than the ground split open, and a young woman rose up through it, with the hole sealing behind her and leaving no sign of her passage. A young woman with short black hair and violet eyes dressed in a form-fitting black and white costume who, apart from the black hair, could have been her twin. Tara stared at the girl, her eyes wide. "Who… who are you?"

The Amazonian guards rushed up, weapons at the ready, armor gleaming in the light of the setting sun.

Atlee spared a glance to the guards, and then, with a nervous smile, replied, "I'm Atlee. I come in peace. Take me to your leader!"

Tara blinked. "... Huh," she said.

* * *

><p>Arthur of Atlantis cut an impressive figure, seemingly standing on the waves themselves as the sea continued to roil with the rising of the Atlantean fleet. Great ships began to break the surface, then, possessed of all the power and fortitude Atlantean technology mixed with magic could give them. The flagship rose beneath him: he stood upon its deck as it cleared the surface, and the colours of the sunset placed the scene in spectacular relief. All around him, his army rose. He, tall, muscled, clad all in gold and green scaled armor, his eyes as blue as a robin's eggs, sea-water still dripping from his blonde hair, surveyed his assembled forces and spoke. His voice was a lovely, rolling, resonant thing: a rich baritone that commanded respect. "My people," he said, "the time has come to end this war. We all know what happened on the day of the Themysciran betrayal. A day that should have joined two peoples - the day Diana of Themyscira and I, your king, were to be wed - instead began a war which has raged for more than a decade. You have all heard the stories. You have all seen many battles at my side. Even with all that he have suffered in the war, we might have had peace."<p>

He took a breath and steadied himself. Grief had crept into his voice as he spoke, but when he went on, anger had taken its place. "That peace died forever the day Diana murdered my wife! I will accept nothing less than the complete destruction of the Themysciran people. This day, Mera, Lady of the Tides, Queen of Atlantis, shall at last be avenged! We will make them pay. Them, and all who stand with them. My people!" He thrust his trident into the air, and there was a crack like thunder. Almost instantly, dark clouds thick with the promise of storm began to roll in, moving with preternatural swiftness. "DEATH TO THE AMAZONS!"

The Atlanteans raised their weapons as one, echoing his cry with a deafening response, "DEATH TO THE AMAZONS!"

"AND DEATH TO ALL WHO STAND IN OUR WAY!" Aquaman cried.

The Atlantean army roared its approval, striking trident and sword and rifle against shield in a tumultuous clamor. Their creatures joined their own voices to the din, then, shrill cries mixing with fog-horn bellows as terrible things rose from the depths to do battle with the immortal women who had wronged them.

In that moment, three figures - a man and two women - descended from above, two rich red capes billowing dramatically in the wind. Superman, Power Girl, and Karen Zor-L looked upon the Atlantean host, and they were greatly displeased. And in a booming, deadly serious voice that cut through the din and all but demanded the attention of all within the Atlantean host, Superman said, "**Stop. Right. There.**"

Arthur leveled his trident at the three. "Who comes to challenge the might of Atlantis?" he asked. The contempt in his eyes became startlement when he recognized one of the flying beings. "Kara?" He did a double-take, and then furrowed his brows. "Kara! Why do you side with the surfacers against your kin?"

Superman glanced at Power Girl with an eyebrow raised, and Karen smirked. "I feel like we've been here before," she said quietly, "Have we been here before?"

Power Girl flushed with embarrassment. "I'm going to have to deal with this all day, aren't I?" She sighed. "At least nobody's tried to attack me with natural, unprocessed materials, yet." She briefly considered whether or not to correct Arthur's misconception. She decided against it: it would needlessly complicate an already complicated situation. Then she spoke in a loud voice to carry the sound to Arthur and the Atlanteans, "I do not side with surfacers against my kin, my king." She gestured to Superman and to Karen. "This is my family. We have come to stop you from making a serious mistake. Will you hear us?"

The last golden gleam of the sunset faded. The sun sank beneath the horizon, and it was night. The clouds passed overhead, blotting out the stars. Arthur's expression became cold and distant, his body language closed off. The contempt returned to his eyes, and Power Girl wanted to wince at the sight. "I will not," he said imperiously, "A Lady of Atlantis is not greater than its King. Not even if she is the granddaughter of Arion. You will not defy our vengeance, Lady Kara. You and your family will stand aside."

Power Girl all but ground her teeth in frustration. "You don't understand, Arth… my king. This world is ending. We have a chance to save many, but you have to cooperate with us!"

"Lies," Arthur sneered. "This is the hour of my victory. And if you will not stand aside." He leveled the Trident of Neptune. "Then you will be destroyed." He thrust the trident forward, and three pillars of water burst from the surface of the sea, each lashing out at one of the Kryptonians.

All three Kryptonians flashed aside, and each pillar met only air.

As if that attack had been a signal, the Atlantean army opened fire. Bolts of energy lit up the night as the soldiers with ranged weapons fired upon the three heroes, and an instant later, fireballs, hexes, lightning bolts, ice spears, pillars of water, and dozens of other assorted magical attacks filled the sky.

Battle had been joined.

* * *

><p>Queen Diana of New Themyscira was the most beautiful woman Atlee had ever seen. That was not hyperbole. That was not exaggeration. That was simple fact. Hers was not the beauty of mortals, but the blessing of Aphrodite herself. She was six feet tall, and Greek, and flawlessly built like the Amazon she was. Her sapphire-blue eyes were large, her lashes dark, her nose straight, and her flowing black hair like the night itself. But this was not the whole of her beauty: There was more to it than that. It was almost impossible to define, to put into words, but there was a presence, a charisma, a weight that took her human features and transformed them into something more. She was goodlier. more divine than any who walked beside her. Her armor was silver save for the red breastplate she wore, with a long grey cape draping down to the floor behind her. And she was regarding Atlee with a skeptical look. "Artemis raises a good point," she said. "How can we believe anything you say? How do we know this isn't some Atlantean trick?"<p>

The Amazons had brought her to the White Drawing Room of Buckingham Palace, resplendent all in gold and white. Two ebony-veneered cabinets sat against the wall at either end of the room, the great mirrors above them reflecting all the room's light back upon itself. Four chandeliers hung down from the reversed-cove ceiling, with a single much larger one above the center of the room that filled the place with light. Atlee sat in one of two golden couches: Diana sat in the other, with Tara and Artemis and several guards standing off to the side.

Atlee looked up. "Use the Lasso of Truth," she said.

Tara blinked. "Lasso of what?" A beat passed, and she blushed. "Oh. Right."

Diana didn't look surprised. "You know a great deal about me," she said.

Atlee nodded. "Enough to know that you know I'm not lying even without the lasso."

Diana smiled. "You have no intent to deceive that I can detect, but others have defeated my insight, and even if you do not intend to deceive me, that doesn't mean what you're saying is true."

"So, Lasso?"

Diana nodded, and unhooked the lasso from where it hung at her armored hip. "This may be uncomfortable," she said, and when Atlee nodded, she began to bind the girl with the lasso of truth.

She was right. It was uncomfortable. Even as Wonder Woman bound her wrists with the lasso, Atlee felt something shifting within her. There was a sense of falling away, like being drawn down into a whirlpool at the center of which lay… truth. A sane mind cannot long endure under conditions of absolute reality, but Atlee would not have to endure it long: only long enough to tell the truth. She shifted uncomfortably. "I realize this situation obliges me to say something snarky," she said, "But my brain keeps seizing up at the thought that I've been tied up by Wonder Woman."

Artemis glared, and Tara rolled her eyes, but Diana only smiled gently as she patiently completed her task, tieing first the girl's wrists and then her arms behind her back. The lasso secure around Atlee, Queen Diana stepped back, surveyed her work, and then nodded once.

Atlee could feel it working. The possibility of falsehood had been removed from her. The thought of asking how she could tell if it was working both occurred to her and became so ridiculous that she nearly laughed out loud, and holy astronaut gods but that was dangerous. Her eyes widened. "Oh, wow."

Tara got a mischievous look in her eyes, then. "Maybe we should test it, see if it's working," she said. She looked at Atlee. "You wanna…"

Diana cut her off before she could say anything else. "That's enough, Tara," she said.

Tara Markov took a breath. "... Yes. Of course. I apologize, my Queen."

Diana nodded in acknowledgement, and then turned her attention to Atlee. "Now, Atlee, you are bound by the Lasso of Truth. You will be unable to speak a lie, and should you lie by omission or otherwise attempt to mislead me with true statements, I will know. Do you understand?"

Atlee nodded. "I understand," she said."

"Who are you?"

Atlee didn't look at Tara Markov. "I am Terra of Strata," she said. "My name is Atlee."

Tara's eyes widened. "What? That's impossible."

Diana held up a hand, and, after a moment, Tara fell silent. The Amazonian Queen waited a beat, and then asked her next question. "Why have you sought an audience with me?"

Atlee looked at Diana, then. "Because the universe ends today. Everyone who was ever born, who lives now, and who might have lived in the future will never have existed. Because the alternative is even worse. Because we have a plan to save as many people as we can, and because if you help us, we will be able to save far more innocent lives than we would have been able to save on our own."

Dead silence, save only for the faint, almost subaudible hum of the lasso.

Queen Diana of New Themyscira took a long, shuddering breath, looked Atlee in the eye, and said, "You have my complete, undivided attention."

* * *

><p>Rain plastered her dark hair flat against her head, and she could smell the sea, and the ozone-scent of weapon discharge, and sulfur from the fireballs, and the sweat of the Atlanteans. The rain muted the scents, made them more distant, but didn't erase them completely. She didn't really feel the cold: she hadn't much noticed temperature variations since after that first month spent without access to sunlight in the custody of the Fantastic Four. The rain made it a little harder. Not much, but a little. Her vision could pierce any amount of rainfall, but though it could not harm her, rain hitting her eyes was at least distracting. Blasts of golden light shrieked through the air, most of them impact against the cliffside, each impact shattering stone like it was made of glass. But Karen was not alone: Power Girl and Superman flew beside her, each soaring gracefully through complex evasive patterns that they made look easy. It wasn't.<p>

Karen had always heard that combat was chaotic. That you never really knew what was going on. That you just had to focus on what was in front of you, and on your objective, and hope that everyone else was focused on theirs enough to let your side pull through. But it wasn't like that for her. She still wasn't completely used to having her brain function at full Kryptonian processing levels, but it was happening more and more, and… it was like the world was in slow motion. She could see the individual rain drops drifting down towards the ocean below. She could hear every battle cry in the Atlantean host, every roll of thunder in the clouds above, see every bolt of energy, every spell moving about. She, Power Girl and Superman moved as one, swooping down into the Atlantean host. Something was building on their flagship. A low, subsonic rumble that was slowly gaining amplitude. They hit the first of the creatures - a titanic crab-thing with a glowing heart of living flame - in unison, each moving faster than the speed of sound. Power Girl hit the joint for its left pincer, Superman hit the right, and Karen shattered one of its legs. The creature was old and strong, and none of them would have been able to do the damage that they did to it without the assistance of Sir Isaac Newton. Its exoskeleton splintered with the three impacts, spilling liquid fire out into the sea around it, sending up great gouts of superheated steam as the creature roared in agony. It began to regenerate almost immediately, the cracks in its exoskeleton sealing over with lines of golden light which visibly solidified into new shell. It swept up its still healing claws to snap at them, but they were already past, in amongst the flock of flying things. Karen ripped a barnacle-encrusted wing from a creature with webbed feet, an insect-like body, and an equine face and muzzle. The beast screamed as it fell into the waters and disappeared.

The battle continued, too fast for any human eye to follow. An enchanted net cloaked in a jury-rigged perception filter took Power Girl while her attention was focused on a whole rank of soldiers firing their magi-tech rifles, and she called out. Instantly, Karen and Superman were there, tearing her free of the net before the foot soldiers could close in with their enchanted tridents and swords. They fought in support of each other, never getting too far away. Twice, Karen's tornado-force frost breath stopped a massed attack on Superman which was on the verge of overwhelming him. Twice, Karen's heat-vision sheared through a blade that had been just about to bury itself in Power Girl's back. Three times each, Superman and Power Girl saved her in turn as they tore the Atlantean fleet to shreds and cast down soldiers scaling the cliffs only to catch them before they could fall to their deaths on the rocks and fling them into the water instead. Even then, even working together in support of one another, they would have failed had the Atlantean host been able to bring its full strength to bear upon them, or been able to separate them.

In that moment, three stood against thousands, and they fought the entire Atlantean army to a standstill for thirty minutes. By the end, the blows which had landed were beginning to tell: although Karen had avoided almost every shot fired at her, she had taken a few hits, and each one was like a bee-sting: Non-fatal, but extremely painful nonetheless. At the end of thirty minutes, half the Atlantean fleet had been reduced to rapidly sinking wrecks, and half of its beasts of war slain or driven back beneath the tide.

Then the sound which had been building grew rapidly in strength as, within the Atlantean flagship, the device in which Geo Force was imprisoned reached full power, and combat ceased for a moment that seemed eternal as the cliffside seemed to visibly recoil, the stone flowing like water as it flattened instantly into a long, slowly rising channel that led to London. The entire island of New Themyscira began to sink, and in London, both Tara and Atlee cried out in agony.

"Brion…" Tara whispered. "What have they done to you?"

A wave of water rushed up the channel towards London, and was frozen into ice an instant later by triple blasts of frost-breath. Pressure built upon the ice, doubling and redoubling. The ice cracked even as Karen, Superman and Power Girl poured on more cold, freezing more and more water until it seemed a mighty glacier had formed in the channel.

"Wait!" an Atlantean soldier cried out, "That's Power Girl! She's weak against natural, unprocessed elements!" With that, he scooped up a handful of rocks and threw one at Power Girl's head.

Caught up in freezing the wave of water with her frost breath, she didn't bother to dodge it. It hit her in the forehead and bounced off, doing exactly nothing. She paused a moment, and then glared at the Atlantean. "No! None of that! Shame on you!"

The Atlantean soldier looked sheepish, and dropped the other rocks he was holding.

Reinforcements were rising from the ocean, now, and though New Themyscira had stopped sinking, it was now low enough for a landing to be practical. Atlantean ships were disgorging troops faster than even three Kryptonians could throw them back into the sea as long as those Kryptonians were unwilling to use lethal force. Even worse, the Atlanteans had finally seemed to adapt to the presence of three veritable gods on the battlefield: every spellslinger still conscious was focusing everything at Karen herself, having recognized her as the weakest link in the chain and trying to take her down first before they moved on to focus on the other two. It was getting harder and harder to avoid taking hits. First a fireball set to airburst exploded ten feet away, singing her and forcing her to shut her eyes against the magical heat. A second wizard took advantage of the moment's distraction and clipped her with a hail of ice-spikes, opening up long, shallow cuts on her left arm and leg. Things were starting to get bad. And then, at thirty two minutes, Power Girl called out, "Back!" and she, Karen and Superman flashed away from the Atlantean forces.

And as she flew away, Karen felt a thrill of sheer exhilaration, and let out a loud cry to give it voice. She felt more energized than anything else, and it seemed strange to her: she'd expected to feel tired, but she didn't. Thirty minutes of battle would have been exhausting for a human, but for them? Lacking injury, they could have gone on indefinitely. Each of them was battered, each was bleeding, but they had done their job, and done it without taking serious injury. More to the point, they had done their job: thirty two minutes of battle would translate into a three hour delay for the Atlantean forces as they reorganized, re-equipped, and prepared to march on London.

* * *

><p>Life was rarely fair, but it didn't always suck. Unless your name was Layla Miller. Then it sucked, though generally only on days that ended in Y. If she had to pick a particular moment when her life went pear-shaped, she'd probably say it had been that time the entire world went crazy. One minute everything was normal, the next minute, mutants were the dominant species and Magneto ruled the world. Even worse, she'd been the only one who knew what had happened. At first, anyways. When the world had gone back to normal, she hadn't. Her life had continued to snowball into the weird and the sucky. It didn't help how she was a little bit chronologically displaced. Probably the only bright spot in the whole thing was Jamie. Sure, he didn't trust her very much. Sure, he wasn't interested in her the way she was in him, but hey, bright side: if he was interested in her, he'd be a creepy pedophile. … Yeah, OK, so that didn't help. Nor did it change the fact that she was walking blind as far as prescience went. She'd known that she and Jamie needed to come along for this excursion, but ever since they'd actually entered the Flashpoint, her knowledge of the future had flatlined. Probably had something to do with being inside an unstable timeline, but that didn't make it suck any less.<p>

They were still in Metropolis, maybe a day in the past relative to where they'd been before, and Irma was still unconscious, and that was bad. Almost ten minutes since she'd passed out and still no sign of stirring. She had a backpack under her legs to elevate them, and a jacket serving as her pillow. Layla had conscripted a couple of bystanders into helping her move Irma out of the street and onto the sidewalk. A crowd had gathered. Someone had called for an ambulance, and traffic was getting pretty well backed up.

A change in breathing told of Irma's waking. The teenaged mutant didn't try to sit up. She opened her eyes, and then she shut them again, and put a hand to her forehead. "... How long was I out?" she asked.

"About ten minutes," Layla replied. She held up three fingers. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Irma looked confused. "Um…"

Layla frowned. "Open your eyes." Irma did so, briefly. After a second or two, during which Layla checked to make sure that one pupil wasn't bigger than the other, Irma clenched her eyes shut again. "Do you know where you are?" Layla asked. "Do you know your own name?"

Irma opened her eyes again and blinked a few times. "My name…" The confusion hadn't faded from her tone. "Um. How long was I out?"

"About ten minutes. You hit your head pretty hard when you dropped out of Phoenix-mode. I think you have a concussion."

"Head hurts…"

"That's normal," Layla said. "Don't try to move. You can't afford it until we've ruled out neck injury. If your neck is broken, you could sever your own spine with something as simple as turning your head."

Irma shuddered, and became still. "I don't think I could if I wanted to."

It was another minute before the EMTs arrived. Between Karen's and Kara's battle against Doomsday a few blocks away and the damage caused by the Phoenix, today was a bad day for Metropolis. Even as the EMTs were loading Irma onto the ambulance, she looked up at Layla with a look of distant fear. "Oh!" she said. "Oh God. They're hungry, Layla. They're so hungry!"

Layla really didn't like the sound of that, and it showed. "Who's hungry, Irma?"

"They are hungry," Irma murmured. She might have shaken her head from side to side if it hadn't been immobilized. "They are coming."

_They are coming..._

* * *

><p>The cease fire with the Amazons was not without its complications. There was resistance within the Amazonian ranks as well as the human ones. The people of Britain wanted nothing less than to see the Amazons expelled from their land and their rightful Queen restored. The Amazons were disinclined to grant that request. The peace was holding for now, but it wasn't something that could last more than a few days. That was fine. All they needed was a few hours. The portal was open now, and even as Captain America watched, the first group began to move through. There were two primary locations that would be receiving refugees thus far: Asgardia and Providence. That much, at least, he had been able to secure. He hoped that they'd get more sites opened up in time to help, but bureaucracy did not move at the speed of crisis. Even with two cities ready to receive them, once extremely advanced and the other literally divine, space was going to be a problem. Moving two and a half million people and all the supplies they would need to another universe was a logistics nightmare on a scale that even the good Lord had never seen, and even then, it only worked because they had both the Flash and Kid Flash on the job. Having two super-powered beings able to move at near the speed of light without damaging the surrounding environment or anything that they carried was as close to a godsend as he had ever seen.<p>

They'd gotten more help from the other side, thankfully. The Fantastic Four were rendering assistance, and most of the Avengers he'd brought with him had gone across to help. But there had still been complications. Probably the biggest was that the Amazons were sending some of their own to be evacuated through the portal. It wasn't something they liked to talk about, but a minority of the immortal Amazons had taken human mates, and a smaller subset of those - nine hundred and ninety seven - had subsequently given birth to half-mortal children, all of them daughters. Those children and their mothers were being evacuated with the civilians by Diana's order, and none of the humans were willing to live with them. So the Amazons were being moved to a third location, despite the extreme complications that it brought and the difficulties involved, they were going to New York. To Mutantville, which was otherwise a near ghost-town in the middle of the city.

Tony stepped up next to him, not wearing his armor. "This is a bad idea," he said.

Steve looked up. "What?"

Tony gestured to Jamie Madrox, who was currently wearing Tony's armor and carrying Steve's shield. "This."

Oh. That. Madrox had come to them a few minutes ago with a crazy idea, and he'd only been half listening: there had been other, much bigger issues to deal with. He focused his attention on it, now, gave Madrox a look, his eyebrow raised. "So, you're sure this is going to work?" he asked.

Jamie Madrox grinned. "No idea. Never tried something like it before."

Steve and Tony exchanged glances, and both shrugged resignedly.

"Here goes nothing," Madrox said, and started stomping his foot.

* * *

><p><em>Oranges and lemons, say the bells of Saint Clements.<em>

Karen wasn't sure what brought the old nursery rhyme to mind, but she'd thought of it on the way back to London Bridge from the mouth of the Thames. The evacuation was in full swing by the time she, Power Girl, and Superman had arrived. The Stratans had already gone through the portal to Earth 616. There were four queues, now, each alternating through the main portal as people emerged from the three relay portals: one in Metropolis, one in Central City, and one in Coast City. American had come through to assist in the defense of the main portal, and they were busily fortifying the area, building upon what the Resistance had already established. It seemed strange that the only humans who were going to survive from this entire timeline were people who happened to be lucky enough to live in London, Metropolis, Coast City, and Central City, and, in the case of the Americans, were also lucky enough to have been chosen for evacuation. That's all. No one else. All told a little more than two and a half million people out of a steadily dwindling population of billions. She'd heard that there were some very ugly scenes going on at the evacuation sites in those cities. Nobody was explaining what was going on, and it was being kept as quiet as possible, but people still talked. The Flashes were still moving supplies and equipment through, and she caught sight of them every now and again as blurs of red and yellow.

Consequences. Every act had consequences. Every thought. Every whispered word, everything spoken out loud, every action, every inaction.

"Suppose a trolley is running out of control down a track," Ms. Pryde had said. "In its path are five people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. You've managed to make it to a control panel and if you flip a switch, the trolley will be diverted onto a different track. Unfortunately, there's a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch or do nothing?"

She'd never gotten around to writing her answer to that.

_When will that be? Say the bells of Stepney._

She wasn't sure. Maybe there wasn't a good answer to find. Maybe that was the point.

"Hey," called a familiar voice.

Karen looked up and saw the rest of her team approaching - the New X-Men. She smiled, though it was more sad than anything else. "Hey," she said.

Noriko and David and Julian and Cessily, Santo, Joshua, and Laura. Noriko was the one who had spoken. "How'd it go?" she asked.

Karen shrugged, and then winced. She was still bleeding from her injuries. Everyone looked tired, but Joshua and David looked more tired than anyone else. "We held them back for half an hour," she said. "I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but Peej seemed satisfied." She looked around. "Things look pretty calm here."

Sooraya was the one who answered. "That girl, Atlee, she managed to settle things with the Amazons. I have been speaking with their leader, Queen Diana." She looked thoughtful beneath her veil, and Karen saw it, even if none of the others did. "She is… an interesting woman. I would not have thought she would make time to speak with me, but she did."

Karen, Noriko and Laura exchanged glances. "What did you think?" Noriko asked.

Sooraya was silent for a long moment, and the others waited while she thought. "I'm not sure yet," she said at last.

"Everything in place?" Karen asked.

Noriko nodded. "Yeah." None of them looked up towards where Sinestro floated some fifty yards above the crowd. "At this point, we're just waiting for the refugees to escape. We figure we have at least until the… um, the Gorilla armies get here, assuming we can hold off the Atlanteans."

Josh seemed to take in Karen's injuries, then. He looked very, very tired, but he took a breath and approached her. "You're hurt," he said.

"It's not bad," Karen said. When Josh moved towards her, she shook her head, "I know I haven't been healing as fast here as I did back on your Earth, but give me an hour or two and I'll be fine. Save it for someone who really needs it."

"OK. Yeah." Josh let out a breath. "They've been keeping me busy. The Resistance had a lot of people at death's door before the cease fire happened, and..." he trailed off.

"And you're tired," Karen finished.

Josh nodded.

Karen spotted something out of the corner of her eye, and unlike a human, her Kryptonian peripheral vision was perfectly clear. Irma. Irma and Layla had just emerged from the portal from Metropolis. Layla was scraped up but otherwise fine, but Irma looked a bit worse for wear.

"Irma?" she asked. She was at the blonde girl's side a moment later. "Holy Crom, what happened?"

Irma looked up, and her eyes didn't focus on Karen immediately. It took a second or two. "... Oh," she said, and seemed relieved. "Hey, Karen."

"What happened?" Karen asked again.

"She hit her head," Layla said at the same time that Irma said, "I died."

Dead silence. A moment later, Irma followed that up with a somewhat defensive sounding, "I'm an X-Man. I got better."

Everyone who wasn't Karen seemed to think that made perfect sense, and their tension visibly faded. "... You what?" Karen asked, horrified.

Irma leaned on Karen, wrapping her arms around the taller girl. It felt good, but it didn't make Karen any less worried. "I was only dead for like a minute. I'm fine."

"She's got a concussion," Layla repeated, not quite rolling her eyes. "She really will be fine, though. She just needs rest, and to not make it worse by getting knocked in the head again."

Karen looked to Josh. "Josh, can you…?"

Josh nodded. "... Yeah. Just… give me a second, OK?" After a few seconds, he took a deep breath and moved over to Irma, putting a hand on her head. Nothing happened. "Uh, Irma? I'm a little nervous about trying to heal a brain injury when I'm this tired. I, ah…"

Irma looked at him. "Then don't. I just need…" she trailed off, as if she'd lost her train of thought, then regained her focus, "I just need rest. And if it comes to it, you can always heal me after you've had some time to sleep."

Josh stepped away. "Sorry," he said.

"Are you sure?" Karen asked.

Irma nodded. "I'm sure."

A warmth grew in Karen's chest, then, affection mixed with need. Irma looked up. She was warm in Karen's arms, and her eyes were very blue. Their faces were only inches apart, and drifting closer. Then Irma, her arms around Karen, drew their bodies together even as Karen, with deliberate gentleness, cupped Irma's face with her hands and kissed her. A long, long kiss. A kiss of youth, and full of fire and passion, Karen's whole world concentrating into Irma's body pressed against hers, lips joined, eyes drifting closed, minds united for one shining moment, saying without words things that words would only dilute.

Josh coughed.

Karen and Irma both opened their eyes and glanced to their left, where Josh was still standing awkwardly close.

"Oh, don't mind me," he said.

Laughing, the two girls broke their kiss and stepped away. "Good luck," Irma said.

Karen smiled a brilliant smile. The moment ended. Then the line began to move, and Layla called out, and Irma returned to Earth 616 with a group of Metropolan refugees.

* * *

><p>The wait was a kind of torture in itself. Having two geokinetics helped with the preparations helped: one of them could concentrate on holding off Brion's continual attempts to sink New Themyscira while the other assembled fortifications and closed off possible approaches to their positions. Twice more, Nightwing, Power Girl, and Superman had gone out to harry the Atlantean advance. Nothing as involved as the last time: strike and fade, kill a deep-sea beast, disrupt a formation, and then retreat. The human military types weren't particularly happy that none of the Kryptonians were willing to kill their enemies, but they took what they could get. They were even less happy with Queen Diana's insistence that she be allowed to try to talk the Atlanteans down before the defenders started shooting. To make matters worse, another force had just made landfall to the south: Gorilla Grodd was coming to England, and his armies were coming with him. And through it all, a sense of dread was building. The psychics among the refugees and the defenders could feel it more strongly than the others: something else was coming. Something dark.<p>

The storm rolled in on the city a few minutes after the Kryptonians' initial holding action. Howling wind, driving rain, thunder and lightning. The refugees were moving sullenly, now, hunched down against the wind as they moved through the portal. Every few minutes, one of the Flashes would move an entire group through, and it went a long way to speeding up the process, but it was still a muddy, uncomfortable affair.

When the Atlantean forces appeared on the horizon, Queen Diana took Layla Miller and a handful of her personal guard to parlay with the King of Atlantis. Lightning flashed, illuminating the scene in fitful bursts, rain-drenched figures standing between the two forces. Diana, helmetless, her hair unbound, stood before Arthur of Atlantis, and there was silence but for the sound of rain.

"Diana," Arthur said.

"Arthur," she replied.

"The arrow of speech is nocked. Let it fly."

Diana looked upon him, and she loved him. "Arthur," she said, "You must stop. The world is about to end, and our conflict will mean nothing if no one remains to be the victor. I can prove what I say. Please, if you ever loved me, please let me prove this to you."

"This same lie," Arthur sneered. "I liked it no better when it was spouted by Kara, traitor to Atlantis."

"Arthur," Diana said, and grasped the lasso of truth, wrapping it around her wrist, "It is no lie."

Arthur's eyes narrowed. Silence fell. And then, "I will let you prove this to me."

Diana gestured to Layla. "Ms. Miller," she said.

Layla stepped forward.

"What is this?" Arthur asked.

"All you need do is take her hand. She will show you everything."

Arthur of Atlantis took Layla Miller's hand. His eyes glowed green as she did… something. Memories of an erased timeline flooded into his mind, and he gasped, and staggered back, his eyes wide as the glow slowly faded.

"My God…" Arthur whispered.

"History was broken," Diana said, "and the whole universe spins towards its doom. But it can be repaired. Time can be rewritten. Something good can come out of all of this. A better world, Arthur. But we have to work together, or the timeline will never be restored."

Arthur sighed, and looked down. "... I know," he said sadly.

Diana smiled hopefully, and the tension seemed to leave her body. She held out her hand. "Come with me, Arthur. We can fix this, together."

With no warning whatsoever, Arthur spun and punched Diana in the jaw as hard as he could, and the force of the blow sent her flying backwards into a concrete wall, which shattered upon impact. When he spoke, his voice was low and furious. "You think I would side with you for any reason?" His voice rose, "You think I would FORGIVE YOU!? **You killed my wife!**"

Wonder Woman climbed out of the rubble, her jaw set, her eyes as cold as ice. "You get one free shot, Arthur," she said. "That was it."

"Understood," Aquaman replied.

Wonder Woman shook her head. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

Aquaman said nothing. His face contorted with fury, and he turned and stalked back to his army, his honor guard following in his wake. After a moment, Wonder Woman, Layla, and the Amazon guards did the same.

* * *

><p>Tara Markov wasn't sure what to think of this other girl, this other Terra who looked so much like her. Terra of Strata. Strata. It sounded so very familiar, and yet… She couldn't put her finger on it. Something was wrong. There was something - an awful, empty feeling - and it was growing. She realized with a start that she'd stopped fighting Brion, stopped fighting his attempts to sink New Themyscira. Atlee picked up the slack.<p>

"What's wrong?" the other girl asked.

Tara shook her head. "I don't… I feel weird."

Was that fear in Atlee's eyes? She looked down at her hands, and something dark seemed to flicker on her finger, just for a second. "Atlee, what's happening?"

Was there a brief hesitation before she replied? Tara couldn't tell. "You've been touched by the power of the god-blooded, Tara."

Tara blinked. "What does that mean?"

Atlee sighed. "Among other things, it means you're not so easy to affect with changes to the timeline. It's not as strong in you, because you're human, but it's still going to do something."

An awful thought occurred to her then, and that gnawing emptiness seemed to spread from her heart down into her limbs, upwards into her head. "... Atlee," she said, "In this other world, am I dead?"

Atlee didn't meet her eyes.

* * *

><p>It began with the Atlantean assault. They rushed across the killing field that the defenders had prepared, confident that their magic would protect them from the weapons of their enemies. The Kryptonians heard it first - a faint, distant buzz coming from above. When she heard it, Karen blinked and looked upwards. What the hell was that?<p>

_I do not know. Says the great bell of Bow._

They came in a great horde, screaming their battle cries even as monstrous, flying things with barnacle-encrusted wings soared overhead. Great, chitinous crab-giants lumbered between ruined buildings, smashing through some, going around others, their flaming hearts glowing ever brighter within them as the moment of contact drew near.

That was when the claymores went off. The American troops who had come through to assist in the evacuation and defense had spent two hours deploying them: a line of claymores that covered all the major approaches to their position. Each one fired seven hundred 1/8th inch steel spheres into the Atlantean army. Each mine sent out a fan-shaped wall of steel spheres 6.5 feet high and 50 meters wide at 1,200 m/s. Even with their protective magics, the effect on the Atlanteans was horrific. Men and women died, their bodies pulverized and rendered utterly unrecognizable as ever having been human. Scores of beasts were killed, maimed, or otherwise incapacitated. In one moment of carnage, eight hundred Atlanteans died, and still they came on. The mortars fired next, and still more died, though far fewer than would have unprotected by Atlantean magic. The Atlanteans returned fire with their guns and their spells, and the Thames itself rose up in their defense, pillars of water striking with impossible force to scour away the American and resistance mortars, and the buzz grew ever louder.

Everyone with a gun was firing now, and more Atlanteans died as they charged the defending fortifications, blood and gore mixing with the rain and running down towards the Thames. Then the Atlanteans reached the lines of the defenders, and the screams of humans joined with dying Atlanteans, and still the refugees moved through the portal. Most of those escaping now were Londoners and citizens of Metropolis - the portal from Coast City had closed a minute ago, and only a trickle now came through from Central City.

The Avengers fell back to defend the refugees, with Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man, and Iron Man dealing with incoming fliers. They were all fighting, now. Hero clashed with hero in the streets of London. The earth shook as Atlee and Tara Markov strained to undo the damage that Geo Force did with every breath: great chasms opened sealed again in the space of seconds. Mountains of rock rose up over the Atlantean host only to be shattered like glass, and every shard sent flying away from the battle to merge harmlessly back into the ground. Through it all, through the din of battle, the explosions, the sounds of bones cracking, of swords cutting through flesh, a faint buzzing grew ever louder. It was like a swarm of insects: maybe flies, maybe locusts, and getting closer by the second.

"We've got problems!" Julian yelled, his voice barely audible over the din of battle.

"I KNOW!" Karen yelled back. A shadow seemed to pass over the sun, dimming the light.

"NEW problems! We've got black rings incoming!"

Karen looked up. Her face paled, and it came to her in a flash of horrified realization: the Blackest Night was here. There had been no Flash or Green Lantern to stop it, therefore it hadn't been stopped in this timeline: it had only avoided Earth. Until now. The Black Lantern rings descended like locusts upon the bodies of the fallen. She could hear their whispers, now: "Flesh." "FLEEESH." "Flesssh..."

"We have to keep them away from the portal!" Karen called. "Don't let ANY of them get through!"

Julian concentrated, forming a vast telekinetic barrier between the rings and the portal, and grit his teeth in frustration: they couldn't close the portal yet. The last refugees was still moving through it. Innocent people fleeing to Earth 616 to escape the death that waited for them otherwise.

Defenders and Atlanteans alike began to fall. The resistance was hit harder than the others: horrible, hungry figures descended from above and unleashed crackling black blasts of energy that ripped life and light from the living body. Canterbury Cricket. Grifter. Count Vertigo. Jinny Greenteeth. More. All dead.

Black rings lit upon the bodies of the fallen Resistance. The same happened across the battlefield with the other dead. Then a voice spoke, cold and pitiless as the grave: "Jeramey Chriqui of Earth. Bobbie Stephenson of Earth. Cole Cash of Earth. Count Vertigo of Earth. Jinny Greenteeth of Earth. **RISE.**"

Six rings blazed towards the open portal to Earth 616. Wolverine caught one of them with his claws and cleaved it asunder. It sprayed black sparks and fell to earth in two pieces, dead. Surge hit the others with a blast of lightning, and though they wavered, they pressed on: five rings hit a wall of telekinetic force. Three deflected violently and hit the ground hard enough to send up sprays of dirt. Two punched through the barrier like it wasn't even there. One deflected off of Captain America's shield. The last went through portal and vanished from sight.

More rings were coming. More and more, and more.

_Here comes a candle to light you to bed._  
><em>Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.<em>

The Flash and Kid Flash ferried the last refugees into the portal with the Avengers guarding their flanks. "Let's move, people!" Captain America shouted. More rings were incoming. The Avengers moved through the portal. The Flash emerged from it. A moment later, it snapped shut with a pop of displaced air.

The dead rose.

In that moment, the battle degenerated into sheer, panicked pandemonium. Black Lanterns and unclaimed rings swarmed through the sky. Amazons and Atlanteans and the undead and those members of the resistance left alive battled furiously. The three Kryptonians ceased holding back against the undead, and each became a whirlwind of destruction, burning and freezing and crushing their enemies with abandon: the Black Lanterns fell to pieces around them, and still the undead came, forming and reforming and claiming every corpse that fell as one of their own. Soorayah scoured them to the bone, and X-23 cut, and cut, and was cut in turn, and regenerated, and the lantern facing her laughed madly as they fought. A dozen Jamie Madrox dupes, all in Iron Man armor, each carrying a copy of Captain America's shield blazed a trail through the battle, repulsors firing into the mass of the undead as he cut a swath to Layla. One of the dupes scooped her up and fled into the London Underground with a dozen Black Lanterns pursuing, each of which were cut down by the other dupes unloading with repulsor fire.

Heroes fought, and heroes died. Batman went down under the grasping talons of a dozen necrotic Lanterns. One of them came up with his heart in its hands, crying aloud in joy. The clouds themselves recoiled as Nekron, Lord of the Unliving, descended from the heavens and lit upon the battlefield, and Death came with him. And into that chaos, into that battlefield drenched in gore and horror, the arrival of Gorilla Grodd and his armies went utterly without notice or comment.

The Flash stared at the nightmarish scene, his eyes wide, a space around him the only calm in the storm. A hundred Black Lanterns were converging on him. They'd be upon him in seconds.

"FLASH!" Surge cried, "GO!"

The Flash surged forward, vibrating through the unliving tissue of a hundred Black Lanterns and vanishing from the battlefield.

At that moment, Sinestro abandoned the battle. His ring flared brightly, a green aura sprang up around him as he matched the Flash's vibrational frequency. Then he rocketed forward and burrowed into very fabric of the cosmos, following in the Flash's wake.

Despite the grimness of the moment, Karen's eyes blazed with a fierce hope. "Do we have it?" she asked. "Are we ready?"

Power Girl landed beside her, then, "Sooner is better than later," she said.

The New X-Men plus Karen and Power Girl fell back from the battle, gathering beneath Hellion's telekinetic shield. Prodigy held up his glowing Green Lantern Ring, "Here goes nothing…" he muttered.

Prodigy locked onto Sinestro's ring with his own, and the world dissolved into light.

* * *

><p>The Flash ran. Into the time-stream, yellow lightning streaming off of his form, he ran, back, back and across and down the moment he had decided to save his own mother, to the moment he had altered history and created the Flashpoint. He caught up with his past self, racing on the cosmic treadmill, light spiralling madly around them both.<p>

Past Flash didn't stop, but shot a shocked look over his shoulder at the sight of his future self. "What the hell is going on?"

The Flash looked upon his past self with compassion. "I know what you're feeling," he said. "And I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry." He seized his past self by the shoulder.

"What are doing!?" Past Flash demanded, trying to shake him off. "Let me go! I have to SAVE her! I can save my mom! NONE OF THIS NEEDS TO HAVE EVER HAPPENED!"

There were tears in both of their eyes, now. For what he had done, for what he had lost, for hope denied.

He threw his past self from the cosmic treadmill, and the moment of ultimate potential, the moment which could change the universe, forward and backward, crystallized in the air. Time broke, and the Flashpoint **became**. "NO!" Past Flash screamed as paradox roiled around them both like a living thing. Then Past Flash was gone, erased from existence, and the Flash ran on through the time-stream.

Three worlds arose before his eyes. Three distinct timelines. The one he knew, and two others along with it. Places of wildness and of Authority. Places where history had gone very differently. "What the hell is this?" he asked.

A woman's face shimmered into view, cloaked, mysterious, and shrouded, her eyes glowing in the shadows. "The history of heroes was shattered into three worlds long ago," she said, "Splintered to weaken your world for their impending arrival. You must all stand together. The timelines must become one again. You can help me fix that, Barry Allen, but at a cost."

"Like hell," Power Girl said, and punched Pandora in the mouth.

The light shattered like glass, fragmenting around him. Barry screamed as he fell through the timeline, and landed…

Landed on solid ground. He skid to a halt in the center of a vast chamber dominated by three pillars of light in which the three timelines could be seen, each of them moving towards some common darkness. They were each within a great ritual circle inscribed with runes carved from the bones of the universe itself, and leaking fragments of the long-dead Bleed that separated alternate worlds like open wounds. The ceiling was high and arched, the walls were full of stars. The Flash, Sinestro, Power Girl, Karen, and the New X-Men had come at last to the Sanctum Sanctorum of Pandora, goddess of the fourth world; and the power of the godwave moved upon the deep.

* * *

><p>"What have you DONE!?" Pandora shrieked, rising to her feet in fury, power building within her.<p>

"Stopped you," Power Girl said. "You're a liar, Pandora. The history of heroes was never split the way you describe. I remember everything. I remember the Crisis, and the infinite Earths that came before it. I remember how worlds lived, and worlds died, and better men and women than you gave their lives and the lives of everyone they knew and loved to give the rest of us a chance. I won't let you destroy what we've built with that chance. Not now, and not ever."

Pandora's eyes narrowed, and there was a flash of recognition. "You…!"

The Flash rose to his feet, then. "Us, actually." He nodded to Power Girl, and she returned the gesture.

Karen stepped forward next, and then Prodigy, and Dust, and X-23, Surge, Mercury, and Rockslide. "All of us," Karen said.

Pandora sneered. "Insects. All of you, insects. I am not unprepared for such an intrusion. I can still accomplish the change, even from here." She opened her hand, and everything seemed to happen at once.

The Flash vanished in a blur of red and yellow, and both Karen and Kara Zor-L rushed forward at full speed, each unleashing a blast of heat-vision as they went. But Pandora had already prepared her contingencies: this was her sanctum sanctorum, the holy of holies, and the center of her power, and she had used her magic to program a hundred different if/then statements into the very fabric of its reality. Spells discharged, and light and heat bent away from Pandora's living flesh even as a hundred balls of red light shot out of the floor and converged immediately upon the three who had attacked her. The Flash evaded them all, triggered still more with his approach, evaded them in turn, tunneled through every defense, his speed conduit building upon itself again and again, until he struck her in the stomach with an infinite mass punch. The power of the speed force flared wildly, yellow lightning crackling across the building. The effect was less than it should have been: it had to pass through layers upon layers of defensive magic, burning out each one in turn, but it still had enough force leftover to send her flying into the star-filled wall, and a spiderweb of cracks went out around her in its wake.

The New X-Men went into action, then, Mercury, X-23 and Santo moving up towards Pandora on foot even as Surge fired off a blast of electricity at range, and Julian created a telekinetic barrier before them as they ran: energy bolts splattered against it, and he staggered with the effort of holding it up against them even as Prodigy let loose with a blast of pure green willpower which hammered into the pinned form of Pandora.

"ENOUGH!" Pandora roared even as the twin kryptonians converged to strike her from either side. A wall of power roared out from her, sending both Kara and Karen flying backwards. "Sinestro!" she roared. "Aid me now, and the world shall be yours to reshape as you see fit!"

Sinestro laughed. "I see. And you need my assistance against these children? Very well, old woman. I shall indulge you."

Sinestro gestured, and an all-consuming force of gravity sprang into existence. The New X-Men were pulled into it in a heartbeat, and in another they might have been slain had Prodigy not rose up and disrupted his construct. Even as Rockslide, Mercury, Dust, and Surge clambered to their feet, Sinestro glared down at Prodigy. "Do you think you can best me with your will, boy?" he asked.

Prodigy met his gaze, unafraid. "Only one way to find out," he replied.

As will clashed with will behind her, Karen shot forward, sending heat-beams and whirlwind breath before her as she went, Power Girl at her side, The Flash blurring beneath them, attacking as one to beat down Pandora's defenses. The shield collapsed. Karen's fist flew through it, and…

Pandora caught her by the wrist in a grip as implacable as time itself. She strained against her, testing strength against strength, and Pandora sneered. "Do you seek to test yourself against a god, Kryptonian? Better than you have failed."

Power Girl's punch was caught in Pandora's other hand. Green light flared violently behind them where the others battled against Sinestro, and for a moment, it seemed like Pandora was the stronger.

"... You know," Karen said, "I've thought about it for a long time, and I think I have answer to the question."

Pandora raised an eyebrow. "Question?"

"Would I flip the switch or do nothing?" Karen asked. She took a breath. "Because whatever a life is worth, it's worth infinitely more than my own wounded conscience." And she tilted her head backwards, and then smashed her forehead violently into Pandora's nose with a sick crunch. Pandora released them both and staggered backwards, nose clutched in one hand, blood flowing down through her fingers, and then Karen, Power Girl, and the Flash all struck her at the same time, sending her flying backwards through the pillar of light which showed the Wildstorm Universe.

The pillar exploded, its connection to that world destroyed, and Pandora rose from the wreck in wrath. "Damn you," she hissed. And then she triggered all her remaining defenses. The chamber pulsed with power. There was a roaring sound and a flash of light, and then pain.

Karen, the Flash, Power Girl, and all the New X-Men collapsed beneath the power of that magic, and circles of light appeared around each of their wrists and ankles, binding them in place.

All except Mercury.

The light passed through her and vanished, finding no purchase upon her body. Unnoticed, unheeded, she picked herself up from the shadows where the blast had thrown her and looked up at the two triumphant villains.

Sinestro descended to the floor in the midst of the circle, observing the fallen heroes. "I have done my part," he said. "I will have my reward." His gaze softened as he considered the pillar of light which showed New Earth and its associated universe. "Don't worry, Abin," he murmured, and held forth his hand, the Green Lantern ring shining upon his finger. "I'm going to save you. I'm going to save everyone."

Pandora drew her sword and spoke a word of power, and it began to glow with a soft light.

The light of Willpower sprang up around him, blazing like a green star, and he spoke the words: "**In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight.**" Will. With enough will, a Green Lantern can do anything. Produce any effect. Not without cause are they called the most powerful weapon in the universe. Sinestro focused his will upon a timeline in flux, here, within the crystallized Flashpoint, and elements within that world began to shift in response. Unguided, unfocused at first, but gaining in intensity and direction. "**Let those who worship evil's might beware my power - Green Lantern's light!**"

Without warning, Pandora stepped in and smoothly brought down her enchanted blade and severed Sinestro's hand at the wrist. His hand, and the Green Lantern ring with it, hit the floor amidst a spray of blood.

Sinestro screamed.

"I cannot allow you to do as you will, Thaal Sinestro," Pandora said, though her tone was gentle. "I am sorry, but yours would not be a world which could survive what is to come." She looked upon the two remaining pillars and sighed. "In truth, I am unsure if the world which will come of the combination of these two will be able to survive, either. All three were necessary to ensure that. But two merged together will have better chance than one world alone." She walked to the center of the circle, then, preparing to cast the spell that would trigger the power stored here and join two worlds as one.

"Please," Power Girl said. "Please, don't do this. You'll be destroying everything. Killing two entire universes. You must know that this is wrong."

Pandora looked upon the captured heroes. "You don't understand. The New Gods are dead. Highfather and Darkseid, dead." Sorrow built in her voice. "Lightray, Orion, Big Barda, Mister Miracle, Granny Goodness, Infinity Man, the Forever People, all dead. We can no longer shield you from what's to come. This is the last chance. Something is coming that will devour this world and every world if it is not stopped." She spoke with conviction, now. "I do what I must for the good of the multiverse. You never stood a chance against me, Kara Zor-L. The only one who could have stood against me is now safely returned to your world." She smiled, but there was little joy in it. "I admit I was surprised by the presence of an entity like the Phoenix, but she is gone, and all is well." She looked upon the bound heroes, then. "It could not have happened any other way. I have had all eternity to prepare for this moment. You didn't really believe that you could put a stop to my Flashpoint with pluck and heroism, did you?"

"We were kind of hoping, yeah," Santo said.

"Then you're a fool," Pandora said, her eyes flashing. "You are all fools. You will meet your end here, now, while the timeline is in flux. And when it stabilizes, there will be no place for you within it. My triumph over you and yours will be absolute: you will not simply die. You will never have existed."

Mercury moved, rushing for the central pillar - the one which held the image of New Earth, shifted now into her war form, claws extended, moving at full speed.

Pandora gestured, and a blast of magical force took Mercury off her feet. She skidded to a halt in front of the pillar and looked up in a daze. Pandora sneered. "You. Your resistance to my magics is formidable, but you are mortal. You will not stand against the will of a goddess."

Mercury rose to her feet, her form wavering with her exhaustion for a moment before stabilizing, claws extended. "We'll see about that," she said. She charged Pandora. She took three magical blasts as she went, each staggering her, each slowing her. A fourth sent her to the ground at Pandora's feet. She reached up with her claws.

There was a note of pity in Pandora's voice as she considered Mercury on her knees, still reaching for her, still trying to stop her. "And so it ends as we both knew it must," she murmured. "What did you hope to accomplish with your defiance, child?"

Mercury coughed, looked up, and grinned. "A distraction, mostly."

Pandora blinked. "Distraction?" Her eyes went wide, and she turned in time to see Sinestro, a glowing green hand forged of pure will now holding his ring to the stump of his wrist, unleash a beam of concentrated nuclear fire into the two pillars that remained. "No." Pandora said in vain denial. "NO!"

But there was nothing she could do. Her contingencies were exhausted, and she had not enough time to unleash a spell. Sinestro had split the atom with his will, and now he focused the ensuing blast into a beam of destructive energy which sheared the two pillars in half and punched clean through the far wall, leaving a blazing after-image burned into the vision of any who saw it.

The pillars exploded violently, sending shards of crystal in all directions. The great ritual circle turned black, fragments of the Bleed burning through the floor and shattering it in turn. Then the stored energy, and every ounce of living paradox within the structure of the sanctum was discharged all at once. "I will not be mocked, old woman," Sinestro said. "If the world will not be rebuilt in my image, then it certainly won't be rebuilt in yours. So says Sinestro."

Pandora writhed in agony as she suffered a simultaneous backlash from stored magical power and paradox alike. It wracked at her, stripping away great and terrible sheets of her flesh, twisting her into something unrecognizable yet still alive, still screaming. "Damn you!" she shrieked. "Damn you all!" Power flared violently, and hurricane force winds flung the captive heroes backwards even as their bindings failed.

Sinestro stood against the onslaught, utterly unmoved. "You should never have betrayed me," he said.

She looked upon him, then, the goddess upon the Green Lantern, and went very, very quiet. Her fury had reached a new height: no longer a screaming rage, but a quiet, deliberate thing. She fixed her cold, furious gaze upon Sinestro, and uttered her sentence upon him: "You will regret this, Thaal Sinestro. **I curse you.** Darkness and sorrow you shall know for all time. Every joy shall be spoiled, every hope brought to nothing. Hubris will follow you, and your ruin will ever come from within your own heart."

Sinestro regarded her calmly, utterly unimpressed by her words. "You cannot curse me with what I already suffer, witch."

The sanctum broke. The Flashpoint shattered. The last thing Karen saw was Sinestro looking up at the empty sky, the whole of reality splitting open around him as the Bleed ate through the remnants of the sanctum, and into that chaos he whispered, "I'm sorry, Abin."

Then the world became a hurricane of fire. Karen was screaming. Every fiber of her being was in agony as she fell through the disintegrating Bleed; for the changes wrought to the timeline which had returned its existence had been undone. She fell through it as its reality unraveled, and her friends fell with her.

Then a rainbow-colored light. Strong hands lifting her.

Then darkness.

END CHAPTER 12


	27. Interlude: Tohu wa-Bohu

Destination Unknown  
>by P.H. Wise<br>A New Gods Crossover Fanfic

Interlude: Tohu wa-Bohu

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is owned by Fran and Kaz Kuzui.

* * *

><p>The Flashpoint ended.<br>The world ended.  
>The universe itself ended.<p>

All of time and space. All that is, was, and ever could be. Except for some two and a half million souls sheltering in another reality, every woman, every man, every ungendered, dual-gendered, or other-gendered being in all creation. Every hope and dream. All of it simply ceased, ending simultaneously at every moment in history as time itself unravelled in a total event collapse. What took its' place was the primordial Nothing. Some called it the womb of creation. Some called it Oblivion. Into that eternal, primordial Nothing which lay between the end of the Flashpoint and the restoration of the previous timeline, Pandora fell.

_In the beginning, there was..._

Pandora abided. Wounded, twisted, beaten, barely recognizable as a god of the fourth world, she yet abided. Nothing was there, and Nothing surrounded her. She, cast into the Bleed even as it unravelled, even as it ceased to exist, came to rest within the Void. It was an emptiness, a lack. There was no up, no down, no left and no right. Here, even time itself seemed to have lost meaning. She could, with an effort of will, order her thoughts sequentially, could choose to perceive her existence in terms of past and present, but it lacked context. There was no light by which she could see, but neither was there darkness: such concepts did not exist in the Nothing. There was no air to breathe, nor any void to suffocate upon. No ground to walk upon, no gravity, no space to inhabit, no time in which to inhabit it, and any pretense otherwise was simply that. She… **was**, and only the lingering spark of der wille zur macht within her staved off her fall into gibbering insanity.

And yet…

Something moved in the emptiness: A presence which defied even the concepts of presence and absence themselves. There was no sound; she heard it breathing in the dark. There was neither light nor darkness; she saw its shadow.

She began to laugh.

Pandora did not know how long she was, for time had lost its hold upon her. An eternity of suffering in emptiness, in lack. And then… light. Within the undark, a single point of light. A concrete, physical thing besides herself in a non-place that was without form and void; _tohu wa-bohu_. She reached for it, wanting it, wanting anything not herself.

It resolved into another new thing: an image, a being. A humanoid, a being suited all in dark blue with a golden disk upon his brow, seated upon his shining green Mobius Chair, suspended in the void, and looking upon her with detached, clinical interest. "Pandora," he said.

"Metron," she croaked, and there was wonderment mingled with her pain. "You cannot be here. You died." Sorrow and pain rose up in her, then, threatening to overwhelm her. "You died with all the rest…"

"Yes," he confirmed. "It is a curious thing," he said, "To have an ending. To see eternities of possibility drawn to a single conclusion and then extinguished. To know that even I, to whom all of time and space is given, and every possible world, every dimension of existence, even I have a single moment of ending, of cessation. I have met mine, and will, and am. All that I am, and was, and will be is ended."

"How are you here?" she asked.

"Eternity does not become less than itself even in death."

The barest spark of hope found purchase in her heart at his words. "There is still… time," she said. "I can still save them."

Metron shook his head. "No."

She reached for him. Reached, and came no closer. The not-space between them became no less. "I have to save them from what is to come," she whispered.

"It is over, Pandora," Metron said. "You have failed."

The dam broke. She broke. Pandora wept, and Metron let her.

Afterwards, when she was able to speak again, she looked upon him once more and asked, "Why have you come?"

"To open the way for one who has sought you since the Death of the New Gods."

She was too tired, too broken to be afraid. She wiped her tears away and nodded.

The Black Racer glided smoothly out from behind the Mobius Chair, yet the black-armored figure of Inevitable Death approaching on bladed cosmic skis did not trouble her heart. "Pandora of New Genesis," the Black Racer said. "Death comes for you."

"I am ready," she said.

He reached for her.

She took his hand.

Pandora died.

END

* * *

><p>Authors' note:<p>

The next chapter is coming along nicely, and, if all goes according to plan, should be ready within a week or so. Within two weeks if things get really busy. As an added bonus, unlike the previous interlude, this one was intended as such from the beginning.

Next: Hoody hoo! The Crisis Crossover is over! We now return to our regularly scheduled fanfic. :D


	28. DU: The World We Saved

The Flashpoint ended.

The universe began. Or perhaps began is the wrong word. Resumed is closer, for it was the same universe as had been destroyed when the Flash broke history, new and glorious and vital, old and hale and existing from the beginning of time.

The universe was reborn.

Every moment of history, from its beginning to its ending snapped back into existence, from the Big Bang to final darkness of Empty Night, and every being which, in the Flashpoint, had never lived, now lived and died again. History snapped into being - even history now unmade relative to the present time - and Earths that never were now lived in the past and ended in the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Hypertime rose and fell. Zero Hour. The Infinite Crisis. The Final Crisis. The Blackest Night. On and on, from beginning to end, birth and death and rebirth.

In Gotham City, a woman sat in a wheelchair alone in a room filled with computer monitors. A map of Gotham was displayed on the central monitor, with various hot spots highlighted in red. "All right," she said, her fingers flying across her keyboard. "I'm in. Local CCTV footage should be in a continual loop…" A pause, "Now. Scarecrow is on the fourth floor. Six henchmen. Five pistols and an assault rifle."

She pulled up a holo-display of the building, then, watching as Batman and Robin dealt with the criminals. When it was over, she grinned. "Nicely done, boys." Chatter came through the communications link. Batman and Robin were off to deal with the next hotspot. She allowed herself a smile, and then…

Her leg itched. She didn't think anything of it, at first. A moment later, one of the sensors set up to detect magical activity in Gotham went off, and then another, another, and another, and soon the entire screen was lit up with activity. Warning. Magical disturbance detected.

"Oh, hell," she muttered. Both legs itched now. She ignored it. A pulse of energy rippled through the city of Gotham, then through the State of New Jersey, and out through the entire world. Police bands lit up with activity: some kind of meteor had fallen from the sky. It had hit Arkham, or near Arkham.

"Oracle?" came the gruff voice of Batman over the comm, and those who didn't know him would never have been able to detect the concern in his voice.

"Bad news," she reported. "First, our magical detection grid went off. I'm not sure what it was, but it was big - big enough to hit the whole city at once. This occurred simultaneously with a meteor impact at or around Arkham Asylum. Anyone want to bet they're connected?"

"We'll take a look," Batman replied, and on her screen, the Batmobile picked up speed and headed out across the city towards Arkham.

Her left leg itched, and she just automatically reached down and scratched it, and it felt good. Then she stopped. Just stopped. She looked down at her leg with blue-green eyes wide, and poked it experimentally… and felt it. Her pulse quickened. No. It was stupid. It was impossible. She took a few slow, long breaths, stilling her breathing, letting her pulse slow, and then focused. Focused on one thing.

Barbara Gordon wiggled her toes.

"What," she said, her voice flat with disbelief.

* * *

><p>Destination Unknown<p>

by P.H. Wise

A DCU Crossover Fanfic

Chapter 13: The World We Saved

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is owned by Fran and Kaz Kuzui.

* * *

><p>Karen woke up. It was a swift, sudden thing, like the flipping of a switch. One moment, forgetful darkness; the next moment, full awareness and wakefulness. She lay in a hospital bed in a room awash with red light. It was warm and humid, and the whole universe seemed wrong, somehow. She was dressed in a hospital gown and nothing else, and her uniform - the black and gold of the New X-Men - had been laundered and lay, clean and dry and neatly folded, upon a solid wooden chair next to the bed. The floorboards creaked as she shifted her weight, and she glanced about at the room. The walls and floor were bare steel, and the except for the bed and the chair and a single security camera set on the far wall, the room was empty.<p>

Karen sat up. "Um," she said, "Hello?"

Silence.

"Can anyone hear me?" she asked more loudly, rising to her feet and looking about for the door. It was locked. She jiggled the handle a few times to no effect.

Silence.

"Hello!?" she yelled.

The lights went out, leaving her in complete darkness. OK, Karen. Don't panic. Don't panic. You just woke up in a strange room where you've been weakened with artificial red sunlight and now it's pitch black. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

The lights buzzed faintly, and when they came up again, their illumination was low and fitfully flickering, casting the room in shadow.

A vague shape made large by darkness and fear stood in the shadows, white eyes fixed upon her, silent and menacing.

Karen swallowed nervously. "Um. I think there's been some kind of mistake."

"Who are you?" he asked, his voice low and gruff.

Hell, when was she ever going to get an opportunity like this again? She'd always wanted to use this line. Karen drew herself up to her full height, looked him in the eye and said, "I'm Batman."

The figure's eyes narrowed and he stepped forward, revealing a midnight-blue cape and cowl over a dark grey costume with a black bat symbol on his chest. "I don't think so," Batman said.

Oh. Right. Figures the one time she actually used the line, she'd use it on Batman. Karen swallowed. "Would you believe Darkwing Duck?"

Batman didn't look impressed.

"... How about two cops in a rowboat?"

Batman continued not to look impressed. "Funny," he said.

"Right," Karen said. "With the artificial red sunlight bath, I guess you already know what I am." She took a breath. "My name's Karen. Karen Zor-L."

If that news surprised Batman, he didn't show any sign of it.

"Look," Karen said, taking a step forward. Batman's eyes flickered to something on the floor. "I'm not here to hurt anyone. Actually, I'm not entirely sure how I got here. The last thing I remember was Sinestro blasting everything, an explosion, and then falling into the Bleed. I, uh, I don't suppose you can tell me which Earth I ended up on, can you?"

Batman seemed to consider that. Then he said, "Stay where you are, and make no attempt to escape."

The lights went out, dropping her once again into pitch darkness. A few seconds later, the lights buzzed and filled the room once more with artificial red sunlight.

Karen scowled. "Yeah, I didn't think so." She looked down at the floor where Batman had looked earlier and saw a strange piece of crystal set into a socket on the floor. The crystal seemed black in the red light, and she took a step back when it occurred to her what it probably was. Her scowl deepened. "Man," she said. "Batman is kind of a jerk."

* * *

><p>"Thoughts?" Batman asked. He stood in the observation room, his back to the holographic screen on which the apparent brunette Supergirl clone was displayed. On the camera, she started changing out of her hospital scrubs and into her uniform. Next to the first screen was a second which showed an unconscious blonde woman in a black leotard with a golden lightning bolt down the front.<p>

Dick Grayson - a handsome, athletic man with light blue eyes, his long black hair pulled back in a ponytail - spared a brief glance at the screen, saw what was happening, and redirected his attention elsewhere without further reaction. "Hard to say without more evidence," he said.

"Where'd you find them?" asked the third person in the room - a skinny, athletic looking teenaged girl with blonde hair and blue eyes whose costume was a variant on Superman's, though her top ended just above her midriff, and she had a blue skirt instead of pants.

"They fell out of the sky six hours ago on the outskirts of Arkham Asylum after a magical disturbance that set off every sensor in the city," Dick replied.

Supergirl raised an eyebrow. "Was anyone hurt? Did anyone escape?"

"No," Batman said.

"No, no one was hurt and no one escaped, or no, you don't need my help?" Supergirl asked.

"Just no," Batman said.

"Did you talk Zatanna?" Supergirl asked.

Dick nodded. "She was able to confirm that neither one of them was the source of the disturbance. Karen Zor-El may have been the target of a major ritual a while back, but Zatanna said that it was hard to tell what it was for. She also said she thinks the girl was exposed to some serious chaos magic. It's scrambled her aura."

"Genetically, she's you," Batman said. "With one cosmetic change: a slight alteration to the gene sequences for hair color."

Supergirl raised an eyebrow. "Looks to me like there's at least two other differences."

Neither Batman nor Dick commented on that, though Batman managed to look slightly disapproving. "This wouldn't be the first time someone's made brunette clone of a Kryptonian," Batman said.

"Power Girl?" Supergirl asked.

Batman nodded, and brought up a video clip which replaced the image of Karen in her room. It was security camera footage - somewhat grainy - of Power Girl fighting what looked for all the world like a black-haired identical twin in a black sports-bra and leather pants in the middle of an underground laboratory. Glass tubes, most of them empty, but a few holding other clones in various stages of development, shattered noisily as the two fought in the six seconds of footage.

"What about the other one?" Supergirl asked. "Blonde lightning-bolt woman?"

"The genetic analysis indicates that she's at least half human," Batman said. "Her alien half doesn't match any known species. She's definitely superhuman, though we won't know specifically what powers she has until she demonstrates them. We've got her under heavy sedation in a chamber rated to contain a metahuman on the level of Citizen Steel or Cyborg."

Dick nodded. "It's not perfect," he added, "but it's the best we could do on short notice."

Supergirl sighed. "Right." She thought for a moment. "Power Girl disappears fighting an evil brunette clone. Superman disappears right out of the middle of a Justice League meeting. This 'Karen Zor-El' crash-lands in Gotham the next day with her blonde friend. … Ok. Can you get rid of the kryptonite and turn the lights to normal? I want to talk to her."

Batman and Dick Grayson exchanged glances. Batman gave an incremental nod of his head, so slight that nobody who wasn't looking for it would have seen it. "I'll take care of it," Dick said. "But keep it short. The lights will come back on automatically once she's been out of them long enough to start regaining her powers, whether you're in there with her or not."

* * *

><p>Karen decided that she really hated red sunlight, artificial or otherwise. Everything about it was annoying. Here, in this room, bathed in that light, her whole body felt like it weighed a million pounds, and there were whole swathes of the visual and audio spectrum that she just couldn't even perceive anymore. Ultraviolet? Gone. Infrared? Gone. Radio and x-rays? Gone. Ultrasound? Gone. Infrasound? Gone. It felt like she'd been struck blind and deafened. Like she was looking at the universe through one of those tiny little peepholes people have in their front doors, sometimes, and like everything she could hear was being filtered through an antique gramophone. Her reactions felt slow, like she was moving through syrup. She couldn't fly, either, and being earthbound just felt wrong. Part of her - the Xander part - thought it was weird that she'd gotten so used to these senses and abilities that not having them felt like being crippled, but the rest of her was just annoyed.<p>

Hell, even the fact that it worked at all was just stupid. Karen may not have been at the Xavier Institute long enough to have gone to many classes, but she could remember the ones she'd attended with… well, with perfect recall. Professor McCoy had started the year in his science class with a unit on light, and light was light. Light from a red sun had a smaller occurrence of high frequencies than light from a yellow sun, sure, tending more towards infrared, but that was all. She knew that her powers worked off of stored energy. Theoretically, red sunlight shouldn't shut off her powers - it should just make her burn through whatever energy she had stored, exactly like using her powers at night did. There was no reason she could think of why this light would disable her powers that didn't inevitably come back to, 'it's magic, I don't have to explain anything,' and that was annoying as hell. It didn't make her powers come back, of course, it just made her annoyed AND powerless.

While she was thus fuming, she spotted movement out of the corner of her eyes. She turned to look, and saw the crystal sinking into some sort of hidden compartment in the floor and disappearing. Then the lights shut off. They came back a few seconds later, this time as normal lights. Then the door opened, and Supergirl walked in.

Karen stared, the sarcastic comment she'd had ready for Batman withering on her lips. And good God but Supergirl looked almost exactly like the de-aged, seventeen year old Power Girl. Supergirl was shorter, sure, a little skinnier, and wasn't quite as, uh, developed, but otherwise? The face was the same. The body, the same. Karen wasn't sure how Kryptonian physical development worked, how long puberty lasted, or when they stopped growing on average, but Supergirl seriously looked like she was just one growth spurt and maybe a good meal or two away from being completely identical to Power Girl in every way.

Then Karen caught her own reflection in the steel wall, and it suddenly hit her in a way that it never had before that she was female. That she was Power Girl's clone. That she was a perfect copy of Xander Harris's consciousness merged with Divine's consciousness in a body that was not just Power Girl's twin, but Supergirl's as well. It felt like being kicked in the chest. She was suddenly aware of her body as her body, and it felt simultaneously creepy and like everything about it was wrong, and totally normal and right and ordinary. So yeah. She stared. After a moment she managed, "...Wow. Supergirl?"

Supergirl put her hands on her hips and considered Karen for a long moment. Then she asked, "You know me? Narrows it down. So, alternate universe version? Evil twin? Black kryptonite split?"

Karen blinked. "What?"

Supergirl took a breath. "Right. Sorry. I'm Supergirl." She offered a hand. "You are?"

Karen shook Supergirl's hand. "Karen."

"Seriously, though," Supergirl said. "What's your story? You might as well tell me. Batman's not going to let you out unless you cooperate. Too much potential danger."

Karen wasn't entirely sure how to respond to that, but she nodded. "Uh. Right. It's complicated." She briefly considered telling Supergirl the whole story, including the, 'Well, I used to be a boy named Xander Harris.' … OK, maybe not. It wasn't that she was going out of her way to conceal that from people, just that… it didn't seem like the kind of thing you shared with strangers the first time you met them. "Really, really complicated. The short version: formerly evil clone." She smirked ever so slightly and put on a faux British accent for the next line: "I got better."

Either Supergirl didn't get the reference, or she was polite enough to ignore it. Probably the latter. "Huh," she said, her tone thoughtful. "I've never had a clone before, formerly evil or otherwise."

"Uh, yeah," Karen said. "Not actually your clone." The thought of Max brought all sorts of complicated emotions to the surface which she simultaneously recognized as not being hers and as totally being hers. After a moment, the sense of duality faded. "Wacky Thaddy Sivana cooked me up for the big bad of the week. He used Power Girl's DNA."

Supergirl made a face. "So you're Power Girl's clone." Her voice turned a bit morose. "Figures." A beat passed, and her voice gained a bit of an edge. "So that was you fighting her in Antarctica?"

The memories of that fight came back to her all in a rush, the way Divine's memories still seemed to do, sometimes. Her and Power Girl going all out against each other, battling across the entire Antarctic continent trading blows that would have crushed tanks like soda cans. The way those leather pants had felt, the material clinging to her legs. The pleasant chill of the antarctic wind against her bare skin. She shut her eyes and banished the memory before opening them again. "Yeah. That was me. My name was Divine, back then. I came down with a case of teenification since then."

"Then you know what happened to her," Supergirl said.

Karen nodded. "Yeah. Thrown into a parallel universe. Me too. A whole bunch of stuff happened because reasons and things. It took a while for her to figure out how to get home. We came across to your universe and wound up in the middle of this funhouse mirror universe where everything went wrong because Barry Allen tried to save his mother's life and broke history, and because this goddess named Pandora was all pissy about somewhere called New Genesis and Apokolips being destroyed and wanted to use him to remake the universe into one she liked better." She made a face. "And yes, I know exactly how stupid that sounds. So yeah. We came. We saw. We smashed. Then I woke up here. I'm not sure where Karen is now, but I'm guessing it's probably back in that parallel universe."

Supergirl gave her a dubious look, and Karen put up her hands defensively. "It's the truth! You don't have to believe me, though. Kara's going to come for me. You can talk to her when she gets here."

"OK," Supergirl said. "Then who's blondie?"

Karen blinked. "Blondie?"

"Blonde woman. Better built than God. Implausibly skin tight black leotard costume with a gold lightning bolt down the middle."

Karen blinked. "Ms. Marvel? What would she be doing here?"

Then an explosion rocked the room, followed closely by the sound of tearing metal, then a series of thunderous booms.

"Besides escaping noisily, I mean," Karen finished lamely.

Supergirl glared at her. "She's a member of the Marvel family?"

Karen blinked. Oh. Right. Captain Marvel. That was a thing. "Pretty sure she's not."

"Right. Excuse me while I deal with this." With those words, Supergirl left the room. Three seconds later, with a howl of protesting metal, Supergirl went flying through the wall next to the door and impacted loudly on the back wall of Karen's cell. The whole room shook, and several of the lights cracked and went out.

"Having trouble?" Karen asked.

Supergirl shook her head. "No. She surprised me is all. I wasn't expecting her to be as strong as she is. This time for real!" She lifted off into the air and shot back out of the room. … and then went flying back through the wall on the opposite side of the door, leaving an identical crater. The room lost power, and all the lights went out. Nothing was injured, except perhaps Supergirl's pride.

Karen could feel her strength coming back. The artificial red sunlight had disrupted her powers, but she hadn't actually burned through her stored energy. Her senses came first: the two missing colors returned to the world, the glow of heat and the beauty of ultraviolet. Then she could see radio-waves moving through the air, and more. She very carefully hid her excitement, looking at Supergirl dubiously. "Weren't you trained by Batman and Wonder Woman?"

Supergirl gave Karen a withering look. "Shut up."

"Do you have a plan besides flying into her fists with your face?" Karen asked with a faux-innocent tone. "Because that one doesn't seem to be working very well."

"Shut UP," Supergirl snapped, pulled herself out of the wall, and stalked back towards the two holes she'd made getting knocked into the room.

"You have a plan to stop them?" a young man's voice asked. Karen's ears pricked up at that.

"J'onn is still two minutes out," Batman replied. "We make our move when he arrives, if we still need to."

Karen's eyes narrowed. Super-hearing was back, it looked like. She walked over to the wall nearest to the voices and gave it a good hit. Her fist went through the steel like it was paper machete. She grinned, then, peeled open the wall, and stepped through.

Batman and, uh, other Batman were waiting for her. Not-Batman in a Batman costume. It tugged at her memory, but for the life of her she could not remember why. ... Except they weren't Batman and Not-Batman. With her enhanced vision, she could now see that they were both holograms. Projections. Neither of them was really here. "Gentlemen," she said.

The sound of battle drifted in from outside. Ms. Marvel against Supergirl. Both Batmen were watching her very, very carefully.

"Divine," Batman growled.

"Not my name," Karen said. Then, "My friend and I are leaving. We don't want to make trouble for anyone, and we don't want to hurt anyone, but we're not going to be your prisoners just because you're paranoid. Got it?"

Batman and Not-Batman exchanged glances. "The Martian Manhunter was on his way," Batman said. "If you really are who you say you are, and if you really don't mean us any harm, you'll wait for him to confirm your story."

Karen thought about it. Martian Manhunter. Coming here. Could confirm her story and get her and… "Yeah, okay," she said.

If Batman was surprised by her agreement, she couldn't tell. Not-Batman looked visibly startled, though.

The fight continued outside. There was a loud crack and a gasp of pain. Karen held up a hand. "Hold that thought."

She flew out through the hole Ms. Marvel had made in the building and emerged into the open night air just in time to see Ms. Marvel dart out of the way of Supergirl's punch, which shattered the concrete pillar Ms. Marvel had been standing in front of. Ms. Marvel's right arm hung limply, and she had a few nasty looking bruises that were fading even as Karen looked. Supergirl looked totally unharmed.

The surroundings were a large city in utter ruin. A few buildings still stood, but most had collapsed, and all showed signs of damage. Wreckage. The entire city of wherever this was, destroyed. Hadn't happened recently, though. No smoke. No dust in the air. In the distance she could see an area that had been cleared of rubble that was full of demolitions equipment: a couple of haulers full of rubble ready to be carried away, a few big yellow caterpillars, some other vehicles, all parked around a couple of temporary buildings.

"Ms. Marvel, Supergirl, stop!"

Both of them froze in mid-air, each looking at her questioningly.

"We're cooperating," Karen said.

Ms. Marvel raised an eyebrow. "Are you serious?"

"Apparently," Karen replied. "You all right?"

"Bitch broke my arm," Ms. Marvel groused.

"Only after you hit me in the face with a city bus," Supergirl snapped.

Karen ignored Supergirl for the moment. "You gonna be all right?" she asked.

Ms. Marvel nodded. "In a few minutes, yeah."

"Right," Karen said. "Let's meet the Martian and get our story confirmed so we can leave." She glanced back at the building they'd been prisoner in. It was a partially collapsed brownstone. The upper floors were mostly gone, with only the occasional support struck sticking out of it. The holes Ms. Marvel had made coming out hadn't done the building any favors, and they'd revealed the steel bunker that lay beneath it. A sign, scorched and pitted with chemical burns, lay on top of the rubble, and was still legible despite the damage. The sign read, 'Blüdhaven Heights.'

Ms. Marvel surveyed the dead city, all but empty of human habitation, and slowly descended to the ground. "What happened here?" she asked, her tone subdued.

Supergirl's expression grew troubled and distant. "A bad day," she murmured. She looked at Ms. Marvel, then. "I'm sorry I broke your arm, Miss."

Ms. Marvel shook her head, "I'll be fine." She attempted to rotate her arm experimentally, but stopped halfway through with a hiss of pain. "In another minute or two."

Karen and Supergirl both looked up. Ms. Marvel followed their gaze. A few moments later, a green-skinned humanoid alien dressed in red and blue descended from above, his long dark blue cape flowing dramatically in the breeze. "Kara Zor-El," he said. "I am glad to see that you have resolved your differences."

The Martian Manhunter looked at Karen, and she felt a distinct prickling sensation across the inside of her skull. "Interesting," he said. A pause. "Yes, I see her, Batman. I'm examining her now." Another pause, and Karen glanced awkwardly at Ms. Marvel, who seemed pretty stoic about the whole thing. "Yes." A pause. "No. I don't believe either of them are a threat." Only the Martian heard Batman's reply. "I believe it is a merged consciousness. Divine's mind combined with that of a native of Earth Prime." Another pause, and the Martian Manhunter's red eyes widened slightly. "Yes. She spoke the truth. And it appears we have them to thank for the continued existence of our universe itself." His expression grew more serious. "We should also speak with the Flash about his recent time travel."

"Combined with a native of Earth Prime?" Ms. Marvel asked in a hushed whisper.

Karen grimaced. "I'll explain later," she whispered back.

Ten minutes later, having refused an offer to teleport up to the Justice League's watchtower on the moon on account of 1, not wanting to be virtual prisoners in the Justice League's headquarters, and 2, wanting to stay in communication range of the general area they'd arrived in for when the inevitable rescue party came, Karen and Ms. Marvel had flown to Gotham City, and now found themselves walking through the downtown area accompanied by Supergirl, who had insisted on coming along to "show you around, and get you some clothes to wear that aren't your costumes."

Karen blinked. "There are shops open at… what time is it, anyways?"

"Four a.m.," Supergirl answered, "And yeah, there are. This is Gotham. There's always something open."

She was right. By 5:00 AM, an hour later, they had both found something suitable to wear over their costumes for the next day or so. They emerged from a store onto a surprisingly crowded street, Karen in blue jeans and a black, collared, button-down long sleeved shirt; Ms. Marvel in black trousers, a red blouse, and a Yankees baseball cap. Both wore running shoes.

"So," Supergirl said at last, "I need to check on something, but I'll be back, OK?"

Karen nodded, and Supergirl shot off into the sky like a rocket. Everyone nearby watched her go. Then, after a minute, people went about their business once more.

Karen glanced at Ms. Marvel. "And the winner for most awkward exit goes to…"

Ms. Marvel smirked, but her amusement faded quickly. She looked at Karen expectantly. "So," she said, "Combined with a native of Earth Prime? That's not the story you and Kara - our Kara - told Cap and Iron Man. You told them that you were Divine's counterpart in your native universe, and that you took over Divine's body completely. You did not tell them that you were still her, just merged with a native of Earth."

Karen winced. "... Yeah. It's kind of a long story."

Ms. Marvel gestured to their surroundings. Only a few people were still walking around on the sidewalks in the pre-dawn grey. "I'm not anywhere for a while," she said.

Karen shifted uncomfortably. The more she thought about explaining herself, the more she didn't actually want to. "Uh, Ms. Marvel? No offense, because I get that you and my sister are on friendly terms, but I don't know you, and this is personal."

Ms. Marvel fixed her with a level look. "You killed two hundred S.H.I.E.L.D. agents," she said, her voice flat. "And you killed Dwayne Taylor, Zachary Smith, and Robert Baldwin. You never answered for any of it. You don't get to keep secrets. Not after that."

A sense of oppressive guilt welled up in Karen's heart, and she clenched her teeth for a moment as the raw memory of sensation rushed up in her mind, allowing her to feel exactly what it had been like to kill those men. She remembered their blood on her hands. She remembered killing Speedball, and Night Thrasher, and Microbe, and… damn it. Merged consciousness or not, she was pretty sure she wasn't supposed to be experiencing Divine's memories like this. Emma had said she probably wouldn't. That most of it was gone.

It didn't feel gone.

"I know," she said. She wanted to say, 'it wasn't me.' She wanted to say, 'I'm not that person.' What she said was, "I'm sorry." Her voice cracked with emotion when she said it, with regret and frustration and even with the barest hint of the exhilaration Divine had felt in those memories of slaughter, killing with abandon, slaughtering creatures that it had never even occurred to her were anything more than insects standing in her way.

Ms. Marvel's eyes narrowed, and Karen knew then that she'd revealed more than she wanted. ""Tell that to their families," Ms. Marvel said.

Stab.

Twist.

The exhilaration was gone. Karen's eyes watered, and she scrubbed at them a few times, willing herself not to cry. She succeeded. "I will," she said, her voice raw. "If it will help, I'll do it."

Ms. Marvel looked her in the eyes, as if searching for something. Then she looked away. They were still walking, still moving through pre-dawn Gotham. "Well," Ms. Marvel said, "Kara vouches for you. I guess that's something. And what I've seen of you since then has been impressive."

It was an olive branch. Karen saw that. She didn't much want to take it, but she could see that. She bit down her first response - the angry and sarcastic one - and nodded. "Thanks."

About a minute later, Karen noticed that their surroundings had taken a downturn. This wasn't a good part of town: people had an edge to them, here. A couple of the men waiting in front of the club entrance across the way had guns in holsters beneath their clothes, which Karen could see thanks to her x-ray vision. She frowned. "Maybe we shouldn't be walking around in this neighborhood," she said.

Ms. Marvel gave her a sidelong look. "Are you kidding?" she asked. "We're both flying bricks. We're both immune to bullets. What's the average thug going to do to us?"

Karen shook her head. "Look, this is Gotham. It's the single most dangerous city in the entire DC Universe."

Ms. Marvel raised an eyebrow. "DC Universe?"

Karen held up a hand. "They're the comics company that publishes… OK, not important. The point is, this place is dangerous, and there are people here who can be dangerous even to people like us. This city is bad news, and if we don't take it seriously…" Karen broke off as the sound of gunfire filled the grey morning. She and Ms. Marvel both whirled around just in time to see…

Karen's jaw dropped open.

Across the street, inside an utter dive of a bar with double glass doors, a huge black-furred gorilla in a business suit hefted a chimpanzee in a tweed suit with a matching deerstalker cap over his head and flung him bodily out through the glass double doors. The doors shattered, but the chimp hit the ground rolling, seemingly unharmed by his trip through broken glass. Even as the chimp climbed to his feet, even as two grey-furred Gorillas smaller than the first, each in pin-striped suits and wielding tommy-guns stepped up on either side of the first Gorilla, the Gorilla in question lit up a cigar, stuck it in his mouth, chomped down on it, and then puffed a few smoke rings.

While all that was going on, the crowd on the street became conspicuously absent. It wasn't that they ran away, just that they found other places to be or otherwise realized that they had pressing business somewhere else. It had the air of a well-practiced move to it, like a dance where everyone knew the steps.

"Detective Chimp," the black-furred Gorilla said,

"Boss Grodd," the Chimp replied, his accent British, and speaking with flawless Received Pronunciation.

"You've made a monkey out of me for the last time, Detective. I won't have you interfering in my plans. Not ever again."

"You'll never get away with this, Grodd," Detective Chimp snarled.

"Oh? Who's going to stop me? You?" Grodd looked to his two tommy-gun toting minions. "Wax him, boys!"

Karen and Ms. Marvel exchanged glances. There were no words. The incredulous look on Ms. Marvel's face and the pained one on Karen's said everything that needed to be said.

The gorillas opened fire, but Detective Chimp was already in the air, and though the guns tracked him, they didn't track quickly enough: a spectacular flying kick took the first gun-gorilla off his feet, while a spinning leg sweep took down the second. Boss Grodd cracked his knuckles, removed his jacket, unhooked his braces from his shoulders, rolled up his sleeves, and dropped into a fighting stance, and he and Detective Chimp began to circle one another warily.

"... Karen?" Ms. Marvel asked.

Karen stared at the dueling apes, who had begun to test each other's defenses with the skill and surety that can only come from a lifetime of training. "Yeah?"

"Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"

"That depends," Karen replied. "Do you think you're seeing a bout of fisticuffs between a Gorilla in a business suit and a Chimpanzee dressed like Sherlock Holmes?"

"Yeah."

"Oh," Karen said. "Then yes. Yes you are."

Grodd struck first, delivering a massive left hook which Detective Chimp deflected with a punch of his own to Grodd's wrist, guide-parrying the Gorilla's enormous fist and then following up with a savage uppercut of his own which Grodd was too slow to evade. Grodd staggered back, glaring at his smaller opponent. Then he spotted Karen and Ms. Marvel on the sidewalk, and his eyes narrowed. "You think two human women will be able to help you against me, Chimp?" he asked, his voice low and dangerous.

"I wouldn't dream of asking a lady to help me take out my own garbage," Detective Chimp replied easily.

They circled a few moments more. Then police sirens started up in the distance, and Grodd backed away. His gun-apes clambered to their feet, rubbing their head and neck, respectively. "Next time, Chimp. I won't let you off so easy." And with those words, Grodd fled the scene, his two pinstripe-suited gun-apes in tow.

Only when he was gone did Detective Chimp turn to look at Karen and her companion. "You could have helped," he said.

Karen blinked. "... Uh. Sorry. Gorilla VS Ape. Fisticuffs. Business suits. I…"

Detective Chimp rolled his eyes. "Bloody tourists," he muttered, walked over to the sidewalk, and sat down on the curb to wait for the police.

"He's right, you know," a familiar voice called from above.

Karen looked up, and then she grinned fiercely, and zipped up to hug the new arrival. "Kara!" she said. "Oh, thank God."

Power Girl grinned, and returned the hug. "Good to see you, too." She looked down to Ms. Marvel, "Hey Carol," she said.

"Kara," Ms. Marvel replied. "I was starting to worry. What happened?"

Power Girl shrugged. She lifted off into the air, and Karen and Ms. Marvel followed. She looked to Karen, explaining the first part for her benefit, "After the Flashpoint started to collapse and dumped us all into the Bleed, which was also collapsing because it technically didn't exist, the Avengers came through on the Rainbow Bridge to collect us. You were the last one out. Ms. Marvel had just grabbed you and hopped back onto the Bridge when everything finished collapsing. It severed the connection to Asgardia before you'd actually traveled back there yourselves." She brushed her hair out of her eyes. "I'm just glad you wound up here instead of any of the other places you might have wound up."

Karen looked to Ms. Marvel. "Thank you," she said.

Ms. Marvel nodded.

"After that," Power Girl said, "It took some time to get everything sorted out. The Flash, Booster Gold, and Heimdall were able to work out a way to get back here. A couple of the Avengers went to London to look for Layla." She looked at Karen. "Noriko and the others found Luke Cage in Metropolis. They're still there."

Ms. Marvel seemed relieved. She smiled. "I don't know about you two, but I'm ready to go home."

Power Girl's grin froze. Then it faded. "... Yeah," she said.

Karen blinked. Oh. Oh! Her heart sank, but she didn't say anything.

Power Girl shook her head, and tossed a small gem to Ms. Marvel. "Just call to Heimdall while holding that. I've got another one, so you can keep that."

Ms. Marvel looked like she wanted to say something, but whatever it was, she bit it back. She nodded. "Thank you, Kara."

Power Girl smiled at her, but it looked strained.

Ms. Marvel vanished from the skies over Gotham in a pillar of rainbow colored light.

Silence.

Karen didn't really want to talk about what they obviously needed to talk about. So she looked up and said, "I met Supergirl."

Power Girl raised an eyebrow. "What did you think?"

"Well, I say met. What I mean is 'was interrogated by, stopped her from beating up Ms. Marvel, and then was taken shopping by.'"

That brought back Kara's smile. "Sounds about right," she said fondly.

"She had to deal with something," Karen continued. "Supposedly, she's going to be back any minute."

Kara nodded. "Meet anyone else?"

"Batman and Not-Batman," Karen said. "And Batman? Kind of a jerk."

Kara let out an amused snort. "Sometimes," she said.

Silence.

Finally, Kara said, "I need you to understand something."

Karen crossed her arms under her breasts. "What's to understand?" she asked. "You wanted a way home. You found it. Hell, you have a life to go back to." She swallowed, and it was hard to keep bitterness out of her voice. "There's no imposter living it in your place…"

Kara sighed, "And all your closest friends acting like you're the imposter, not him. And once everything is explained, them treating you like a curiosity at best. But not like the friend they've known for years."

"... Yeah," Karen said.

"Believe it or not, I know how exactly how you feel."

Karen looked up. "Yeah?" she asked.

Kara nodded. They landed on the roof of Wayne Tower, above the observation deck, with only the spire above them. "There was a man named William Matthews. We - the Justice Society - had been investigating a series of murders of beings who had godlike powers, or whose names were derived from gods. He killed the New Olympians, Chroma, a few others. There was this complicated situation going on at the time involving a Superman from an alternate universe. Matthews attacked us at the JSA headquarters, trying to kill the alternate Superman. He failed, and when he teleported out, he accidentally took a couple of us with him."

"What does this have to do with…" Karen began.

"I'm getting there," Kara said. Then, with a note of humor in her voice, "Have a little patience, would you?"

Karen smiled ruefully. "Sorry."

"It turned out, he was the servant of a surviving god of the First World. The creature's name was Gog, and it absorbed Matthews, used him as a catalyst for its rebirth. It wanted to fix the world for us. All we had to do in turn was be perfect. It tried to help people. To heal them. It gave Doctor Midnite his sight back, healed Damage's face, gave Sand a peaceful night's sleep, cured Starman's schizophrenia, and me…" her voice cracked, and she swallowed before she continued, "It saw how lonely I was, how much I missed my home and my friends, and it sent me 'home.'"

Karen's eyes widened. "But… wasn't your entire universe destroyed along with all the other parallel Earths?"

"Yeah," Kara said. "Everyone I'd known was there. Helena was there - Helena Wayne. She was Bruce's daughter, and my best friend - and they all reacted to me like I really was home, and had been missing ever since the Crisis, and…" she trailed off, and let a few beats of silence pass. "Turns out that when the local multiverse came back with its' 52 worlds, one of the worlds that came back was a copy of my old one. With a copy of me living there. Their Power Girl came back, and there was no room for another one, and it was like losing them all over again."

"... You'd been replaced," Karen said.

"Yeah," Kara said. "So believe me when I say, I know how it feels. You're right, though. I do have a home to go back to. It wasn't easy, but I made one here on New Earth. It wasn't easy to get there, but there are people here who are family to me, and you don't abandon family." She looked Karen in the eye. "But you're family, too." Kara hugged her, then. "I love you, Karen. You're the sister I never had, and I am not abandoning you."

Hope. Love. The feelings were nearly overwhelming in their intensity, and she smiled and returned the hug. "Love you, too," she whispered.

Supergirl landed on Wayne Tower, then, but didn't say a word. After a moment, Kara broke the hug, stepped back, and held out her hand to Karen. "Now, I want to show you, and your friends, what you fought for. Come and see the world we saved."

"OK," Karen said.

And they did.

* * *

><p>Two days later, Karen, Noriko, and all the others returned to Earth 616, with Kara promising to follow them within a week. Logan piloted the Blackbird back to New York, and everyone was oddly silent as they went. Irma, now well on her way to recovery from her concussion, sat next to Karen on the flight back, resting her head on Karen's shoulder.<p>

Karen smiled.

It had been strange. Some things about New Earth actually had changed in the wake of the Flashpoint, but everyone remembered that they'd been different. Mostly small things. A few tiny changes to the geography. Movies with different actors than people remembered. Some bigger things. Things like Batgirl's paralysis.

"So," Kara had said. "Sinestro actually did make changes to the universe. Just… not the ones he wanted."

Karen had nodded. "Looks like it. Though the fact that everyone remembers the world before the changes means…" She trailed off. "OK, I got nothing."

Kara had frowned. "I have to wonder, what else changed because of him?"

* * *

><p><em>Meanwhile, on New Earth...<em>

Amanda Waller woke up feeling like she'd just been hit by a bus. Dizzy. A little bit sick. Light headed, dry throat, someone smashing her head with a clawhammer over and over. Oh, and someone had apparently turned up the volume on her alarm clock to at least eighteen billion decibels. Or that was what it felt like, anyways. Gritting her teeth, she shut off the alarm and staggered out of bed.

She stumbled a few times on her way to the bathroom, but she managed it. At the sink, she turned on the water and splashed some into her face. Bleary-eyed, she told her reflection, "Never again."

Then the cobwebs in her thoughts cleared, and she actually saw her own reflection. Her jaw dropped open. Amanda Waller had never been vain. She'd had bigger worries than her appearance. She was short, fat, and unattractive. She knew that, and she was fine with it. She had no desire to be anything other than what she was, and professional was all she'd ever tried to look like. But now, where once a short, fat, middle-aged black woman had stood, she now saw the image of a tall, muscular, drop dead gorgeous twenty-something black woman wearing… a lacy black bra and panties. Her eyes narrowed, and she glared at the mirror. "Oh, HELL no."

* * *

><p>No one said anything when the Blackbird landed.<p>

Logan was the first one off the plane. Scott Summers and Emma Frost were waiting for them in the hanger.

When Scott spoke, his tone was low and dangerous, but all he said was, "Tomorrow. First thing. We are going to have a talk."

Logan just kept walking as if Scott wasn't worth his time. Karen and the other mutants, on the other hand, swallowed nervously and exchanged glances.

Emma's face might as well have been carved from diamond. Irma didn't meet her gaze.

They filed out of the hanger, and went their separate ways.

The Xavier Institute for Higher Learning seemed small, now. It hadn't, before. There was a new man in charge of the O*N*E contingent, but that wasn't what had changed. Now, walking through these halls, it felt as though the place had shrunk in the time she'd been away. She was different, but her place at the school hadn't changed, and that felt… off. Discordant. Most everyone looked dead on their feet, and though she didn't feel sleepy in the same way the others did, bed did have a certain appeal to it. She could use her body's stored solar energy to refresh herself in lieu of sleeping if she wanted to, but that wasn't the same thing. Though she could go without sleep, she still had a psychological need for it. Just like with eating and drinking. When she did that, when she went without sleep, there was always this lingering sense of oddity, this residual perception that the previous day hadn't really ended yet: that it had just kept right on going.

Karen and Irma both stopped at the hallway intersection where they'd need to part ways. Noriko was still coming up the stairs. Irma glanced down the hall towards her room, where she knew her sisters were waiting. They were both completely silent in their telepathic bond. Not an empty silence, but an angry one. Irma turned to Karen. "... Can I sleep with you tonight?" she asked.

Karen blinked. "Uh…"

"Not have sex," Irma said, "Just sleep."

Partially disappointed, partially relieved, Karen nodded. "Yeah," she said. "Sure."

They went to Karen's room, with Noriko right behind them. .

Someone was waiting for them in the room. It was a girl that looked only vaguely familiar, was maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, and tall, but not as tall as she was, though that probably wasn't a fair comparison. She had long brown hair and light-blue eyes, and was wearing a maroon blouse and black jeans. Karen frowned, watching the girl through the still closed door. Whoever she was, she was in Karen's chair, and seemed perfectly fine with being there, too.

Karen opened the door and walked in. When she caught sight of Karen, the girl's face lit up into a wide grin, and she rose to her feet. "Can I help y..." Karen began, only to cut off when the younger girl unexpectedly hugged her. "Oh. Kay," she said, her discomfort readily apparent in her tone, "That's a thing. Definitely a thing."

"You can relax, Xander," the girl said, "I know it's you."

Karen froze. Completely. Even stopped breathing. Just stared at the girl for a second. "What."

Irma blinked tiredly, turning to look at the stranger. "What?" she asked.

Noriko looked from Karen to the girl and back. "You know this girl, Karen?" she asked.

"It's me, Xander," the girl said.

"Uh," Karen said, feeling a little bit like the slow kid in the class, "Me who?"

The girl's grin faded. "Me," she said insistently. "Dawn."

Karen looked at the girl - Dawn - with a look of total bewilderment. "... Who?"

END CHAPTER 13

Author's notes:  
>Dun dun dun!<p>

Going to be flashing back to the time everyone spent on New Earth at some point, but it's time to spend some time on Earth 616 again.


	29. Of Keys and Kryptonians

Once upon a time, on a little planet called Earth, there was a Key. It had existed before the time of man, when the Celestials walked amongst the stars, and it would exist long after the last man had turned to dust. If the Space Gods were the source of the Key, or if they knew its source at all, they have revealed it to none. Contained within the Key was power - power beyond imagining - a power that could unlock the gates between all dimensions, between all worlds. It was a transcendent thing, existing simultaneously in every reality and within itself. And as time passed, as shadows stretched and became darkness, as humanity rose and from them was birthed the Eternals and the Deviants, the Key remained. On one parallel world, far distant from Earth 616, a group of monks known as the Order of Dagon were formed to protect it from those their founder feared would abuse its power.

One day, a selfish exiled goddess trapped in human form learned of its existence and butchered the Monks of Dagon in order to take the power of the Key for herself, to rip open the gates between all dimensions, and so to return home. She was a petty, short-sighted creature, and though she was stopped, it came at great cost: Buffy Anne Summers. 1981-2001. Beloved sister, devoted friend. She saved the world a lot.

At least, that's how it would have gone, but for Xander Harris, and the bet that he lost with Cordelia Chase.

Once upon a time, on a little planet called Earth, there was a girl who still sometimes thought of herself as Xander Harris. She wasn't. She was a perfect copy of his consciousness created within the mind of the female Kryptonian that Xander had dressed as on Halloween. Xander Harris still lived in Sunnydale with his friends, fighting the good fight and assisting the Slayer with the understanding of Kryptonian technology that he had gained on the very same Halloween night that had created her - but she remembered being him, and despite her merging with the clone of Kara Zor-L known as Divine, she still wanted to be him and not herself.

It is difficult to pinpoint the precise beginning of the change. Beginnings are delicate matters. Sometimes you can change a thousand things within a scenario and end up with an identical result. Sometimes a single change will transform everything going forward.

Certainly the seeds of change were planted on Halloween itself. Much was altered that night. Many vampires were slain by an angry Power Girl who otherwise would have gone on to kill untold numbers of humans, innocent and otherwise. Perhaps it was the confrontation with the Judge, in which Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris combined their respective budding magical talent and knowledge of Kryptonian technology to MacGyver together a single-use, immobile, and extremely expensive Phantom Zone projector that they used to banish the Judge into that dark realm of shadows beyond space and time.

Perhaps the seeds of change began to germinate afterwards, when Karen returned to Sunnydale seeking closure, and she and Power Girl scoured not only that place, but the surrounding countryside of every dark thing they found, though their focus was on saving humans and not on killing monsters.

The visions of the vampire Drusilla saved the unlives of Spike and Angelus that night. And Angelus was a clever, dangerous creature. He saw what had happened, learned that there had been two of them this time, and his thoughts immediately returned to Halloween, and the costume Xander had worn.

Someone was changing the game, but that was just fine with him. He knew how to change with it. So it was on a mild evening in Sunnydale not long after the Judge's banishment that Angelus turned to his companions with a grin and said, "Change of plans, kids."

For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost. For want of a vampire, the careful plans of the Powers That Be, millennia in the making, were undone. And the stories of Glorificus, of Dawn and Buffy Summers, of Angelus, and of Karen Zor-L would never be the same.

* * *

><p>The New World<br>by P.H. Wise  
>A BtVS, Power Girl, DCU, and Marvel Comics crossover fanfic<p>

Chapter 1: Of Keys and Kryptonians

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. I'm honestly not sure who owns Buffy the Vampire Slayer anymore, but it used to be Fran and Kaz Kuzui.

* * *

><p>No one had moved. Karen, Irma, and Noriko still stood just inside the door to Karen and Noriko's room, faced with a tall brown haired teenaged girl that none of them recognized.<p>

"Who?" Karen asked.

Dawn frowned. "You know me, Xander. Dawn Summers. Buffy's sister."

"Summers?" Noriko asked.

Karen was still totally at a loss. "Buffy has a sister?" Since when? … No, she distinctly recalled Buffy being an only child.

Irma looked thoughtful. "She's not lying. Or at least, she honestly believes that what she's saying is true."

"Wait," Karen said, her eyes narrowing. "You're not that telepath who sidetracked me into an alternate universe when I was coming back here from Sunnydale, are you?"

Dawn looked confused. "Uh, no?" A beat passed. "You…" Her voice cracked. Her eyes grew wet with tears as yet unshed. "You took me trick-or-treating on Halloween?" It was more a question than a statement. "When everyone turned into their costumes, I was terrified, but you turned into Power Girl, and you protected me, and…"

More details came into focus. The way the girl's lower lip trembled. Her eyes became more and more bloodshot, her skin blotchy as she began to cry. Damn it. Karen shut her eyes and tried not to hear the buzzing of the girl's breath through her mucus membranes when she breathed out through her nose, or the smell of everyone's teeth. She was pretty sure she'd have been able to tell exactly what Dawn, Noriko and Irma had last eaten based on that alone, and it was annoying. She tried to ease her brain into filtering out the extra information that her Kryptonian senses were giving her. It worked. The extra layer of information faded into the background - still present, but not important. A background color and nothing more.

Karen opened her eyes. "We need to talk to…"

* * *

><p>Emma Frost stalked into her bedroom like a woman with a mission. It was late, and she was wearing a white cape over a modified white bandeau with white elbow-length gloves, skin-tight white pants and, uncharacteristically, flat shoes in the place of her more typical high heels. Scott Summers was already asleep in their bed, but he'd fallen asleep on top of the covers. He hadn't changed out of his clothes. 'Scott,' she sent telepathically. He didn't stir. He was dreaming of… oh, damn it all. For a split second, Emma considered replacing Jean with herself in Scott's dream. Then she discarded the idea. There wasn't time. She reached out and shook him, then, calling aloud this time, "Scott!"<p>

Scott blinked open his eyes, which she only noticed because of his thoughts suddenly incorporating visual data: his glasses his everything. "Wh… what?"

When Emma spoke next, she did so in a voice filled with cold fury. "Five minutes ago, someone or something attempted to rewrite the memories of everyone at the school."

Scott snapped instantly to full wakefulness, his eyes wide behind his all-concealing glasses. "_What_?" A beat passed. Then he was out of bed and putting on his shoes. "Do you have any idea where it came from?" he asked. "Do you know what they or it was trying to do to our memories?"

Emma shook her head. "No," she said. She looked towards the interior wall of the room at a downward angle that put her eyeline roughly on the level of the older students' living area. "But I did detect a new mind inside the school which wasn't there before the attack, and was present immediately afterwards."

Scott looked grim. He replaced his ruby glasses with his visor. "Right," he said as he snapped the visor into place. "Let's go."

They left the room together, heading for Karen and Noriko's dorm room.

* * *

><p>Scott Summers and Emma Frost rounded the corner at the end of the hall.<p>

"... Emma?" Karen asked. She hadn't originally intended that to sound like a question. It was too far for her voice to carry, but Emma had probably heard it all the same.

Dawn kept on crying. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't dignified. It was just raw human pain, and seeing a girl in pain like that stirred up her protective instincts. His protective instincts. Whichever. And if she really was Buffy's sister... Karen wasn't sure. At the very least they could ask Doctor Strange to contact Buffy in Sunnydale about it.

"Xander," Dawn said thickly, "You have to help me. I don't know where I am, I just… woke up in that room, and the only reason I didn't completely freak out is there was a picture of you with some other kids on your desk, and I don't know how I got here, and..." She was clutching Karen like she was a lifejacket, now, and Karen put a hand on the girl's shoulder, feeling awkward as hell as she did it. Her other hand hung in the air even more awkwardly - she had no idea whatsoever what to do with it - as Dawn's voice rose to a shrill, tear-choked shriek, "... and I DON'T KNOW WHERE MOM AND BUFFY..."

"That's quite enough of that," Emma said from the doorway.

Dawn's eyes glazed over and she collapsed into Karen's arms, instantly unconscious.

Karen frowned at Emma. "OK," she said flatly, "I assume there's a good reason why you just did that. Explain."

The look Emma gave her in response was cold enough to have frozen the entire mansion, and it suddenly occurred to Karen that Emma was one of the few people who could actually hurt her if she wanted to. She swallowed, and continued in a more placating tone, "Uh, if you don't mind explaining, Ms. Frost."

Emma's expression lost some of its cold edge, but her eyes were still hard when she spoke. "Ten minutes ago," she said, "Just after we met you arriving in the Blackbird, in fact, someone or something attempted to rewrite the memories of everyone in the school. I stopped it. Immediately afterwards, I discovered a new presence here: a mind that wasn't here before the attack."

All eyes went to the unconscious girl in Karen's arms. A shiver went down Karen's spine, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. "... Oh," she said.

"We are going to get to the bottom of this," Scott said, "And we are going to do it right now. Karen, bring the girl. The rest of you? Go to bed."

Karen gave Noriko and Irma a helpless glance. She hesitated.

"Now, Karen," Emma said.

With the briefest of goodnights to the other two girls, Karen hefted Dawn Summers in her arms and followed Emma and Scott, first to the elevator, then to a sublevel of the mansion, then to the infirmary.

Henry McCoy was already waiting for them when they arrived, blue-furred and leonine and wearing a lab-coat over the shorts he'd been sleeping in. A brief explanation followed, after which Dr. McCoy eased Dawn's unconscious form into one of the diagnostic beds they'd acquired from the Shi'ar.

"Do we know anything about this young woman's identity apart from her possible involvement in a psychic attack on the school?" the blue-furred doctor asked.

Karen swallowed, not at all comfortable with how this was going. "Her name is Dawn Summers. She… she said she was Buffy's sister."

Dr. McCoy furrowed his brow. "Summers?" he asked, glancing at Scott.

Scott shook his head.

"She's a mutant," Emma said. "That much is obvious."

Karen blinked. "Wait, what?"

"To a telepath," Hank explained, "The mind of a mutant has a… resonance of sorts that is quite distinct from anything a normal human would possess."

"Seriously?" Karen asked, looking at Emma. "You can just tell that about people by their brain wavelength? Their brainlength?"

"Never use that word again," Emma said. "But yes."

A holographic representation of Dawn's body sprang up above the bed, surrounded by various equally holographic controls. Hank began to manipulate them, his fingers sliding across the semi-solid hologram as he went about his business. "She seems to be in good health, at least. I am beginning a genetic analysis now. Once that is complete, I shall compare her information to our records of all known mutants for whom we have genetic data available, pre and post M-Day."

There was little to do then but wait. Emma, Scott and Hank talked for a few minutes before settling into a watchful silence. Karen sat down on one of the beds. Her eyes drifted shut.

Thirty minutes later, the sound of raised voices startled her awake. Karen still didn't feel sleepy, exactly - she wanted to go back to sleep, yes, but she knew that she could just have her body draw the energy it needed out of the solar energy stored in her cells. She could function on that indefinitely, and she'd survive, but she wouldn't be happy, and she wouldn't be as healthy as she would otherwise be.

Karen regarded Emma tiredly. "Ms. Frost?" she asked.

Emma turned.

"Can I…" Karen began.

Emma nodded. "Goodnight, Karen. We will both see you in the morning. Bright and early."

Karen left the infirmary without another word.

Noriko wasn't in the room when she got back. Her bed was made and her things had been picked up from the floor. Irma was there, she had showered, she wearing a nightgown that was a little bit too small - probably one of Nori's - and was lying under the covers on Karen's bed. "Hey," Karen said.

Irma stirred, and looked at Karen over her shoulder. "Hey," she said sleepily.

Karen thought about asking where Nori had gone, but dismissed the idea not long after. Irma didn't say anything about it.

"Everything all right?" Irma asked.

She asked. She didn't just go into Karen's mind and get the answers. Karen smiled, though it was not an untroubled expression. "Yeah. Sort of. … I guess I'm not sure what to think. Buffy didn't have a sister," The smile faded, "But that girl knew me. She called me Xander. If she's not a telepath who just stole those names from my brain, then let me state for the record that I'm officially wigged out."

Irma yawned. "The record will so reflect," she murmured.

Karen grabbed a tank top, panties, and pair of shorts out of her closet and headed into the bathroom. Once there, she stripped out of her uniform, bra, and panties, and got into the shower. Afterwards, fully clean for the first time in days, Karen brushed her teeth, pulled on her tank top, shorts and panties, dumped her unstable molecule costume that didn't actually need cleaning into the hamper along with her dirty underwear, and then climbed into bed beside Irma. She hesitated, but Irma didn't - she put her arms around Karen and pulled her close.

It was good. Irma's body felt soft and warm against hers, and she could feel her heartbeat through the thin layer of the nightgown. They were both asleep in minutes.

* * *

><p>Karen's dreams tended to be a mixed bag. Sometimes, she had pleasant dreams. Sometimes she had nightmares. Sometimes she had dreams so unremarkable that she kind of wanted to forget them even while she was having them. Sometimes she dreamed of things from Kara's life, or from Divine's. And sometimes she dreamed about various times when she'd made a total and complete fool of herself.<p>

Guess which kind this was.

One would think that given the lovely young woman who was sleeping in her arms, she would have dreamed of something pleasant - and she actually did for all of ten minutes or so. Then her dreams took another turn. Irma vanished, and their ocean-view hotel suite vanished with her.

A moment later, Karen found herself with Power Girl standing atop the R.H. Kane building, with the Gotham riverfront shining in the night below them. The lights of the city - and especially of the massive Knights Dome Sporting Complex and the ferries that made regular traffic there - made even the water itself seem to glow, though it washed out the stars into a uniform black. Power Girl had only just finished taking her on an aerial tour of the city, and they planned to visit New York next, and to meet up with the New X-Men there. Somewhere in her awareness, she recognized that she was dreaming of something that had already happened, but that knowledge didn't end the dream, nor did it allow her to alter it.

Both of them heard the grappling hook strike home on a spire above them. Then a masked figure in red and black swung onto the rooftop. He was quiet, but so far, the only human who had ever snuck up on Karen was Batman, and this guy, whoever he was, was no Batman. He looked vaguely familiar, but that was true of a lot of people from this universe. Xander had grown up with DC comics. He'd never been completely obsessed with them the way that Jonathan and Tucker (and Tucker's brother, what's his name) had been, but he'd enjoyed them, and they'd given him comfort in the worst days of his life. Almost everything was at least familiar, but this guy wasn't someone he had followed.

The masked man smiled as he saw Power Girl. "Power Girl," he said. "He said you were in town. It's been a while. That the new sibling?"

Kara smiled in turn, nodding to the man. "Red Robin," she said, and her tone just happened to fall from a higher tone to a lower one between the first word and the second.

Karen blinked. Really? The guy was named after the… Oh, come on. You couldn't hand her that opening and not expect her to take it. "Yum!" she sang, completing the jingle.

Red Robin and Power Girl both stopped and looked at Karen with an identical nonplussed look.

After an awkward couple of seconds in which Karen realized that neither of them actually got the reference, she flushed with embarrassment. "It's a restaurant chain that..." she tried to explain only to trail off. It sounded lame even to her ears. She took a few steps away. "I'll just… stand over here."

Red Robin gave Power Girl a sidelong look. "PG, your sister is weird."

Power Girl nodded. "Sorry. Yeah. She does that sometimes."

The actual incident had improved after that, but in the dream, things went downhill from there. Cordelia and her panel of distinguished judges consisting of Principal Snyder, the Master, and Spike only rated that incident a 7.3 on the 'you're a schmuck-o-meter,' and felt that her attempt to stop the Sandman from robbing a bank shortly after her arrival on Earth 616 was by far the superior incident (though even that paled in comparison to Xander's seventh birthday party back in Sunnydale). After some discussion, Cordelia hit the big red button to start the next humiliating scene, replacing Gotham with the Sunnydale High cafeteria, with Larry only a few feet away.

The Hyena incident came next. Cordelia called, "Roll the tape!" and away it went. The whole world reshaped itself around her, but the group remained at their table, separated from the scene by a transparent fourth wall.

And while Cordy and her panel provided color commentary to his possessed encounter with Buffy, a man opened the room's plain wooden door and walked slowly along the back wall until he stood directly behind the panel. He was exceedingly ordinary: one of those seemingly interchangeable white businessmen in their mid forties. Mouse brown hair and dark eyes, a body language that spoke of casual authority and privilege: About the only thing that might have made him stand out in any way in a crowd of his fellows was the excellent physical shape he was in. He wore a full black business suit, white shirt, and black tie, and his shoes clicked when he walked. And when Karen saw him, her heart all but leaped into her throat.

She stepped through the transparent wall and into the room with her critics, leaving an empty spot in the world where she'd been in the memory. The group at the table fell silent as the man walked around the table, not stopping until he stood directly in front of Karen. She was trembling, now, and looking at his feet. He reached out a hand, took her by the chin, and slowly, gently raised her gaze to meet his.

"I waited for you," she whispered. "At that house in Stamford. I was sure you'd find me. That you'd know what to do."

"I know," he said.

"... but you never did," she said, still speaking in a whisper. She felt… she didn't know what she felt. All at once, a storm of conflicting emotions seemed to race through her body, gathering around her so thickly that they felt like a second skin "Why didn't you find me?"

"I've found you now," he said. "I won't leave you alone again."

A simple, wonderful warmth rose in inside her chest. "You promise?" she asked.

"I promise."

The storm receded, fading into the warmth, and she smiled.

And in her bed at the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, Karen woke up with a start. Her heart was racing, and her eyes were wide. It was dawn, and she was pressed up against Irma's body, spooning with the other girl from behind. And they both had bed-hair the likes of which even God had never seen.

Karen stifled a desperate giggle, and then, as quietly as she could, she slid out of bed and got ready to face the day. Just a dream. Thank God. The memories of humiliation were something she could handle, but having Maxwell Lord in her dreams? That was beyond creepy. Better than having him there in real life, she supposed, even as part of her disagreed.

She really, really needed to talk to Emma about this.

* * *

><p>Scott Summers' office was meticulously organized. Everything in its proper place. Everything exactly so, and precisely symmetrical. Scott Summers and Emma Frost were waiting for them when they arrived, and neither was sitting down. The whole group of students filed in at 7:45 AM, one after the other.<p>

He let them wait for a good five minutes before he ever spoke, and Karen felt her discomfort growing with every second that passed. Then, at last, he spoke but a single word: "Explain."

They did, each of them contributing in turn.

When they were finished, Scott looked upon the New X-Men, his face as stern and merciless as a thundercloud. "So," he began, "Let's review where we are. You - all of you - lied to us. You left without permission, and in defiance of the standing orders of Emma, of mine,I and of the O*N*E commander. Karen violated her house arrest again. You stole a Blackbird. You flew it to Asgardia, and then you put all of your lives in terrible danger, you picked fights with beings orders of magnitude more powerful than you are, you got an Avenger killed, and you all nearly died multiple times. Do you have anything else to say for yourselves?"

They stood, all of them, Karen and Noriko, Irma and David, Julian, Sooraya, Josh, Santo, Laura, and Cessily, and where once they would have stood with eyes upon the floor, downcast, feeling like children who had disobeyed their parents, now they each stood before their furious teachers and were unmoved. "Yes," Noriko said, speaking for her team, "I have something to say for myself." There was no childish whine in her tone, and no tremble of fear. Only confidence and calm acceptance of whatever was to come. "We helped save three entire universes from being destroyed. One of those universes we saved was Kara's. We did it for her, and for Karen."

Emma's expression was utterly unreadable, but Scott grew visibly more angry. "Anything else?" he asked in a dangerous tone.

"Only that we did the right thing," Cessily said.

"And we'd do it again if we had the choice," Santo finished.

"And you all agree with this?" Scott asked.

Each of them nodded.

Scott's anger vanished as if it had never been. In its place, he had a very slight smirk. "Good," he said.

The New X-Men exchanged glances. "... wait," Karen said, "You're not mad?"

"Logan briefed us both on what happened," Scott replied. "His report was impressive. But even so, if you had given any other answer than what you gave, I would have hit you with every punishment I could think of. And then every punishment Emma could think of. It's one thing to say you're ready to be full members of the team. It's something else to prove it."

Emma gave an approving nod. "We're proud of you, X-Men," she said, and Scott nodded.

The New X-Men started to grin, then, and exchanged relieved looks. "You had us worried," Karen said.

That little smirk grew into a genuine smile. "Get to class before the late bell rings," Scott said. "You might be X-Men, but you're still in high school."

Naturally, the day went downhill from there.

* * *

><p>Classes at Xavier's were hard, and not just because it was difficult to concentrate on anything knowing about the psychic attack last night and Dawn being down in the infirmary unconscious. Almost everything they taught was college prep material, and back when she'd been Xander, Karen had never been more than a strictly average straight-C students. She came into first period - World History - without having done the reading. Or the homework. It didn't help that Logan was their history teacher, and that he accepted no excuses and gave zero fucks. Of the group that had gone with her, only Irma and David had actually done the homework. While they were in an alternate universe. Fighting for their lives.<p>

Second period - human anatomy - was worse, though for different reasons. Although it was an elective, it hadn't been Karen's choice to take the class: she'd been enrolled in it by her advisor. … Who was Emma Frost. Why was it worse? Well…

The class was human anatomy. Taught by Betsy Braddock. She was wearing a black single-breasted blazer over a white button-down shirt and a black skirt. The outfit was thoroughly ordinary. The woman wearing it made it look like a fashion statement. And she got the attention of almost every boy in the class (and Karen, and a few other girls, too) every time she took a particularly deep breath.

"Good morning, class," Betsy said. "Given that we finished up with the endocrine system a day early, today we're starting our unit on the human reproductive system. If you've taken sex ed, then you've probably covered some of this information before, but this is going to be a much more in-depth approach. Get all of your giggles out now."

They did. Apparently, all it took to send a group of almost-adults back to the maturity level of children was to bring up the subjects of sex and sexuality in a classroom setting. Some things didn't change.

Karen sighed. This was… not really a subject she was comfortable with anymore. It wasn't as bad as it used to be. She'd more or less accepted that she had girl parts now, but it was still weird. Though that was really only half of the weirdness of the subject. The other half was the fact that she had no idea how much of what they were learning in this class was actually applicable to her situation. Did her Kryptonian, uh, girl parts work the same way as a human's? … Yeah, ok, so maybe she shouldn't have cut the conversation short when Kara had actually tried to talk about it with her.

They broke up into small groups after a few minutes of overview to begin the first activity, and each group got a different question to discuss amongst themselves. Karen's group - herself, Noriko, Julian, and Laurie - were assigned the question, 'How are the male and female reproductive systems similar?'

"Well?" Julian asked, looking Karen's way expectantly.

Karen blinked. "Well what?" she asked.

Julian looked at her expectantly "You're the only one of us who's been both, right? Got any insight for us?"

Karen blushed with embarrassment, and Laurie frowned. "Leave her alone, Julian," she said.

Julian held up his hands, "Hey, I'm not trying to be an asshole or anything, I'm just curious. Karen's got a, a unique perspective, you know?"

Noriko nodded. "I'd kind of like to know, too, if you don't mind sharing it, Karen. What was it like to be a boy? How different is it now that you're a girl?"

Karen thought about it. Willow had asked her the same question when she'd gone back to Sunnydale, Rao, it felt like a lifetime ago. Her answer hadn't been a very good one. 'The same,' she'd said, 'but different.' Was that still true?

"I don't know," she said honestly. "I mean, it's really, really different, but I don't know how much is different because I'm, you know, an alien, and how much because I'm a girl. I mean, I can remember things more clearly than I ever could before, and I know I'm acting different, and I feel different, and, um, differently. But is that because I'm a girl, or because I'm an alien, or because I have super powers, or something else?"

Laurie nodded thoughtfully. "Huh. Guess that would make it hard."

"What about the obvious stuff?" Noriko asked.

"Obvious stuff?" Karen asked.

"Yeah," Noriko said, looking at Karen expectantly.

Obvious stuff? What obvious… oh. Right. Karen blushed. Having Susan Storm talk her through her first period had been the most embarrassing moment of her life. Worse than any of the subjects hit upon in her dream last night. She hadn't had a period since that first one, though, and she had no idea if she was going to start again now that she was in her own body instead of… in Divine's body, she mentally amended, and grimaced. She added the lack of periods to her mental list of things to ask Kara about. "Can we talk about something less completely mortifying?" Karen asked. She gestured to their completely blank discussion page. "Like the differences between the human male and female reproductive systems?"

"Sorry," Noriko said.

Julian followed up a moment later with, "Man, if what happened to you ever happened to me? I'd go straight to someone like Wiccan or Doctor Strange. Have them turn me back into a boy. Maybe I wouldn't be human, but I'd still be a guy, right?"

Karen blinked. Then the full implications of Julian's statement hit her like a ton of bricks. Then her jaw dropped open, and her lips moved, but no sound came out. After a second she managed, "I'm dumb." Then she stood up.

The whole class stopped its discussions, and every eye focused on Karen as Betsy asked, "Ms. Zor-L? Did you need something?"

Karen sat back down, her cheeks burning.

* * *

><p>The rest of the school day moved far too slowly for Karen's liking, and there were conversations she needed to have. She needed to talk to Irma's sisters, for one. The fact that they'd gotten into a fight over whether or not they'd be coming with her to New Earth was… well, she needed to talk to them. She also needed to talk to Emma. She'd been intending to do so after the meeting in Scott's office that morning, but she'd forgotten. It just hadn't occurred to her to ask her if she could talk for a minute. She made a mental note to go find her when she was done with lunch. When lunch finally did come around, Karen walked into the cafeteria, picked up a tray, collected her food, and tried not to think about the girl named Dawn Summers who was asleep in the infirmary.<p>

Irma and her two sisters were seated at their normal table, alone. All three had grim expressions, and their eyes were glowing as they held a silent conversation. Irma looked up, met Karen's gaze briefly, shook her head, and sent a single word to her telepathically: '_Later._'

Karen nodded once in response, and then went to sit with Noriko and David. Laurie and the New Two were there - New Two being the name the school as a whole had given to Joan and Mindee, who were the new pair of Stepford Cuckoos - and Laurie had a math book open in front of her, and was plugging away at her homework for next period.

"Hey Karen," Noriko said as she sat down.

"Karen," David echoed.

"Nightwing," the New Two said in unison, with exactly the same inflection.

OK. That was another thing: She really, really needed a new codename. Nightwing had sort of worked, but it just didn't feel… hers. "Hey," she said.

Laurie didn't immediately look up. Her expression was one of intense concentration.

"So," Karen said. "We saved three universes. I say we party."

Noriko and David smiled at that, and the New Two looked briefly confused before they gathered the necessary context telepathically. After that, they looked awed, instead.

"Have you seen any of the people from the other world since we got back?" Karen asked.

Noriko shook her head, but David said, "I haven't seen any, no, but Superman sent me a message. Had Iron Man deliver it. He said some guy named Kyle Rayner is coming to meet me today after class. He's a Green Lantern. Like me, I guess."

Karen nodded, going over what she could remember about Kyle Rayner in the few Green Lantern comics she'd read. And basically all she could recall was that his girlfriend had been murdered, chopped up, and stuffed into his fridge for him to find. And that was way more horrifying now that she knew Kyle Rayner and his deceased former girlfriend (whose name she couldn't recall) were real people and not just comic book characters. Wait, Iron Man delivered a message? "Iron Man delivered it?" she asked.

David nodded. "Yeah. He showed up just after the lunch bell. I saw him heading down to the lower levels."

Karen made a non-word sound somewhere in the neighborhood of a closed-mouthed 'huh.'

"So was Kyle Rayner in those comic books from your old world?" David asked.

"Yeah," Karen said, "But he wasn't really in any of the books I followed. I was more of a Superman, Batman, and Power Girl guy. Maybe some Justice League and Justice Society on the side."

David made 'hmm' sound of acknowledgement. "Bare basics?" he asked.

"Umm," Karen said, giving the sound a distinct edge of uncertainty. After a moment, she shook her head. "Sorry."

David sighed. "All right. Thanks anyways."

"Mmhmm."

Something about their conversation had amused Noriko. Had was trying not to grin, and failing, and was right about to comment on whatever it was she had heard that she'd found funny when Laurie let out a pained groan, dropped her pencil, and let her head sink down to thunk gently against her notebook.

Karen looked Laurie's way. "Everything all right?" she asked.

Laurie blinked, and then looked up. "Oh! Karen! When did you get here?"

"Five minutes ago," Karen replied.

Laurie blushed. "Sorry." She glanced down at her notebook, then up at Karen. "Hey, you're good at math, right?"

Karen blinked. Nobody had ever suggested that she was good at math before. The very concept was alien. She had always been a straight-C student, and nothing more. "I think you might want to talk to David," she said. "Or, you know, anyone who isn't me." Laurie raised an eyebrow at that, and after a moment's hesitation, Karen said, "No. I am not good at math."

Laurie frowned. "But Kara's great at math!"

Karen shrugged uncomfortably. "I'm not Kara."

"Even identical twins have differences in their natural capabilities," David interjected.

"But you're not an identical twin," Laurie said. "You're her clone. With the exception of your hair color, you're genetically identical."

Karen felt even more uncomfortable at that. "I don't really know what to tell you," she said.

Laurie frowned. "What's the square root of 546?" she asked.

Karen didn't even had to think about it. Her brain flashed through the necessary calculations in less than a second, and the solution was completely obvious. She rolled her eyes a little, and said, in the exact same tone she had meant to say, 'I have no idea', "The square root of 546 is 23.36664289109585."

David blinked. Then a green calculator energy construct appeared in front of him and he checked her math. "Huh," he said. "She is correct."

Karen stared straight ahead, her eyes wide, looking just as shocked as she felt. "What."

"You might have been a straight C student before," Laurie said, "But Kara's brilliant, and you're her clone, now. I think you might be surprised what else you're able to do."

Karen had no idea how to respond to that, so she just kept staring with an expression of shock on her face. "What?" she asked again.

Laurie rolled her eyes.

* * *

><p>After lunch, and after she'd recovered from the shock of being able to do complex math in her head, Karen left the cafeteria just in time to see Stephen Strange come in through the school's main entrance and into the atrium. She froze in place for a split second, more out of surprise than anything else. "Doctor Strange?" she asked.<p>

He looked up. Only a few other students were milling about in the atrium, and one teacher: Something Drake. Karen hadn't really interacted with him much, but as a walking, talking man-shaped ice sculpture, he stood out. Ice-guy stood up and moved to intercept Doctor Strange.

"Ah," Strange said, "Ms. Zor-L. I trust today finds you well?"

Karen nodded. "Uh, yeah. You?"

He smiled. "It has been lovely thus far. I pray that it may continue to be so."

"Me too," Karen agreed. "Do you have a minute? Or will you have a minute? I was hoping to ask for your help with something, and…"

"Hello, Doctor," Ice-guy said as he drew closer.

The door opened again, and two men entered in quick succession. Almost simultaneous with the first man's arrival, the sound of one of the Blackbird jets could be heard approaching the school from the north. Few others would be able to hear it just yet, but Karen's ears pricked up slightly. One of the men was dressed in a black bodysuit that showed off his impressive physique, with twin pale lightning bolt designs going down either side of his chest to meet just above his crotch, and what looked like a tuning fork set into a downward-facing equilateral triangle on his forehead. The other was Namor of Atlantis. Karen blinked.

"Hello Black Bolt. Namor," Ice-guy said. "Welcome. The Professor should be landing any time now, and Stark and Richards are already in the infirmary with Emma. You're all welcome to join them."

Doctor Strange smiled apologetically at Karen. "I'm sorry, Ms. Zor-L, but I am very, very busy today. Perhaps you could schedule an appointment to meet with me at my home? I believe you have the number."

Karen frowned. "Yeah, sure." The Ice-guy started to lead Doctor Strange, Black Bolt, and Namor off towards the elevator to the lower levels, when Karen realized their probable reason for being here. "You're here about Dawn, aren't you."

Strange stopped. He didn't turn around, but he stopped.

That was all the confirmation Karen needed. She immediately moved to follow them. She might not know the girl, but the girl knew her, and she said she was Buffy's sister. Maybe Buffy had a sister she never talked about. And that there were no pictures of in the Summers house. It was unlikely, but it was possible. Hell, maybe she was Buffy's sister from an alternate universe or something. Either way, she had come to Karen, and if these people were going to be deciding what to do with Dawn, she was going to be there.

Doctor Strange resumed walking, and the ice-guy glanced her way as she began to follow them.

"Kara, right?" he asked.

"Karen," she corrected.

"Karen," he said. "Don't you have a class to go to?"

She did. She also didn't care. "I feel ill," she said. "I'm going to the infirmary."

"The school infirmary is down the hall," the ice-dude said, pointing in the opposite direction from the one they were headed..

"I know where it is," she replied, and kept walking.

The elevator doors opened. Strange, Namor, and Black Bolt all stepped inside. The ice-man stopped short and said, "This isn't a meeting for students, Karen," he said. "I can't let you come with. Sorry."

Karen pushed past him and into the elevator. It was absurdly easy. The main challenge was just in not breaking him while she did it. "The girl they're here to see came to me for help," she said seriously. "She was lost, and in pain, and she needed my help. I can't just stay out of this."

The ice man looked annoyed, now. The air grew a little colder. "Like I said," he repeated, "I can't let you come with."

Karen glared at him; unbeknownst to her, her eyes flashed red. "Right," she said. "Maybe you should grab that guy who can stop me. What was his name? Michael McDoesn't-exist?"

The ice guy's eyes narrowed, but before he could reply, the elevator doors slid shut, and it began to descend.

Steven Strange regarded her with a raised eyebrow, and she flushed red with embarrassment.

Namor seemed more amused than anything else if his smirk had anything to say about it.

Black Bolt did not react at all.

"... I," she began.

"Peace, Ms. Zor-L," Strange said. "I heard your reasons. I will not attempt to stop you. Ms. Frost may."

Karen grimaced. Contrary to her bluster, there were people who could stop her, and she knew it. Emma was one. Doctor Strange was another. She tried not to let her worry show on her face. She mostly failed. "Well," she said, "here's hoping she's in a kind and understanding mood."

* * *

><p>Emma's mood was neither kind nor understanding. When she saw Karen in the company of Doctor Strange, Namor, and the Black Bolt, she regarded the young Kryptonian with an awful, cold anger. If she had read Karen's mind to see what she'd said to Drake whatever his name was, Karen couldn't tell, but she flushed red with embarrassment all the same. "Ms. Frost," she said.<p>

Emma's telepathic reply was terse, to the point, and cold as an arctic gale. '_Do not speak until or unless you are called upon to do so.'_

Karen swallowed audibly and shut her mouth.

A number of chairs had been brought into the infirmary. Reed Richards was seated in one, sipping from a styrofoam coffee mug with one hand while he typed on a holographic keyboard with the other. Dawn was still asleep, lying on a bed behind a privacy curtain. Iron Man was standing, leaning against the wall. Both took note when Karen walked in. Tony's expression grew hard behind his mask; Reed only raised an eyebrow. A few short greetings were said by the new arrivals. Otherwise, a stony silence held.

Footsteps echoed down the hall through the open door to the infirmary. Someone was approaching. The footsteps came gradually closer, and then a bald man of indeterminate age. He was handsome, with sharp cheekbones and kind blue eyes. He had one of those ageless faces combined with good skin and a fit body that made any guess of how old he was beyond 'fully mature adult' utterly impossible. He was dressed in a black business suit, white shirt, black tie, black shoes. It reminded Karen of… The thought halted. Hadn't she wanted to ask Emma about something? She couldn't remember what. Whatever. It would come back to her if it was important.

Charles Xavier considered each person in the room in turn, pausing only when he got to Karen. He glanced at Emma, and something passed between them before he moved on and sat down next to Reed Richards.

When all of the men who were going to sit had been seated, Emma Frost sat down next to Charles Xavier, leaving Karen to stand behind her. "Gentlemen," she said, sweeping her gaze across the room to take them all in. "Before we begin, I understand that there are a few questions you'd like answered. You may vocalize them if you like."

Iron Man glared at Emma from behind his mask, and only Karen saw it. His tone was unmistakably suspicious and hostile. "Let's start with how you knew to call us all in in the first place." He looked to Xavier. "This group was supposed to be a secret, Charles. How does Emma Frost know about it?"

Emma made a facial expression where the corners of her mouth turned up and she showed her teeth, but it wasn't a smile. "Honestly, Tony. Even discounting the fact that I am an Omega class telepath whose power is rivaled only by the man sitting next to me, I'm afraid that your operational security for the meetings of your quaint little club just hasn't been as good as you thought it was."

"We took every precaution," Iron Man began.

"Yes," Emma said, interrupting him in mid-sentence. "Your on site security was always impressive. The rest of it less so. Reed Richards is one of the most famous men in the world. So are you. Charles is equally recognizable in the mutant community. Namor is Atlantean royalty, and his government notifies ours whenever he is on American soil. Doctor Strange is the world's Sorcerer Supreme, and I have it on good authority that other practitioners of his art can sense his power for miles around if he does not take care to suppress his aura. Even when he does, his preferred style of dress is not one which lends itself to remaining unnoticed. Each of you save Charles wears a flashy, attention-grabbing costume, and you don't seem to make a habit of changing into anything less conspicuous for your secret meetings. In fact, you're wearing those costumes now. People notice you. The last time you all gathered in once place, Karen arrived at our doors shortly thereafter."

Karen blinked at that. "Wait, what?" she asked.

Emma continued on right over her interruption without pausing. "The time before that was just before the Hulk disappeared. The time before that was just prior to the creation of the new Avengers team. It wasn't difficult to piece together. If I've worked it out, you can be assured that others have done the same."

Each of the men at the table exchanged looks. "It seems we will need to review our security measures for these meetings once we are finished here," Reed Richards said.

"Quite," Emma said.

"And Karen Zor-L's reason for being here?" Iron Man asked. It was almost inaudible, but the hostility in his tone did ever so slightly increase when he spoke her name.

"Will be made clear shortly," Emma replied, displaying no sign whatever of her irritation with Karen's presence. "Were there any other questions before we begin?"

"None but the obvious," Doctor Strange said. "Why did you call us here?" He already knew. He'd showed that much in the atrium. The best Karen could figure, he was asking for the benefit of the others.

"She did so at my request," Xavier said. "Emma contacted me while I was making my final approach to Earth after an extended trip into Shi'ar space. She apprised me of the situation, and given that she already knew of our group's existence, I advised her to call each of you in."

Every eye in the room went to the bald man for a moment.

Emma picked up where Charles had left off. "Last night," she said, "After her and the other New X-Men team's return from Power Girl's native universe, someone or something attempted to alter the memories of everyone in this school. I put a stop to it. Immediately afterwards, I sensed a mind in the school that had not been present before: a girl who claimed to know one of my students, who claimed to be the sister of one of her friends, but whom she had no memory of."

Emma looked to Karen. '_Pull back the curtain, if you please,'_ she sent.

Karen hesitated only a split second before she walked to Dawn's privacy curtain and pulled it back, revealing the unconscious girl behind. The men turned to consider the girl.

"Gentlemen," Emma said, "Meet Dawn Summers." She gave them a moment, and then asked, "Professor, what's your impression?"

Charles looked thoughtful. "She's a mutant," he said. "An active one, too. The psionic resonance is unmistakable. She is not a telepath, however."

"Doctor Richards," Emma said. "How old would you say she is?"

"Difficult to tell for certain without an extensive genetic analysis, but I'd guess early to mid teens. Thirteen, perhaps fourteen."

Emma smiled grimly. "Hank was up most of the night running tests, and then re-running them to double and triple check the results. She's less than a day old."

Xavier looked up sharply at that, and even Namor and Black Bolt took note. "Is this some sort of magic?" Namor asked, "Perhaps alien science?"

"We don't know. What we do know is that someone created a teenaged Summers child, placed her in the room of one of my students, and attempted to alter our memories as they did so."

"Summers child," Xavier murmured. He looked up. "Scott and Jean?" he asked.

Emma shook her head, "No. Thank God, no. Not Scott, not Jean, not Madelyne Pryor, Redd Dayspring, or any other clone, alias, or permutation thereof. No, this one's Alex and Lorna's."

Namor smirked. "At the rate the Summers family and their lovers are acquiring mysteriously fully grown children, I expect you'll have a son or daughter from the future of your own showing up at this school any day now, Emma," he said.

Karen winced, immediately remembering the Cuckoo clones, and how almost a thousand of Emma's children had died in the fires of the Phoenix. Emma, however, didn't visibly react to it. Instead, she just seemed to consider Namor's words, tilted her head to the side, and said, "Perhaps." She looked to Doctor Strange. "Doctor, your opinion?"

Doctor Strange rose to his feet. "If the rest of you will step back for a moment, I will examine the girl in the all-revealing light of the Eye of Agamotto! Perhaps thereby I may determine if her origin be magical or mundane in its nature."

The others moved back, and the amulet at Strange's throat began to glow with a gentle golden light, like sunlight had suddenly kindled within the amulet and spilled out now upon the sleeping form of Dawn Summers. The gentle glow seemed to kindle the air around her, revealing an impossibly vast green iridescent… something suffusing the girl, surrounding her body and … creating her body? Within her and without her. It made Karen eyes water to look at it: it was like a sphere, and there were spheres inside it, connected to it on five different axis, unfolding within the structure and without the structure, and everything connected in ways that shouldn't be possible, and with no hard angles, no straight lines, and it hummed weirdly in a way that caused the beds and the displays and the lights and the walls to hum in sympathetic resonance that grew louder and louder even as Karen watched, her eyes wide. And as the all-revealing light showed them the Key, so too did it show the Key them. It saw them. Though it had no eyes, It looked upon them, and the weird hum grew louder still, and the light rippled in a way suggestive of strange malignancies and ancient dooms long since lost to the waking world.

Yet the Green Glow of the Key was not the only new source of light within the room. Doctor Strange shone with weird magics, and it physically hurt to look in the direction of Black Bolt, Professor Xavier, Emma Frost, and Namor. … and she herself was glowing. Karen looked down at herself, startled by the light within her own body. In the all-revealing light of the Eye of Agamotto, her whole body blazed like a living star; it was not blood that flowed in her veins but liquid sunlight, resplendent with the potential for destruction of a nuclear maelstrom.

"By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth!" Strange cried, his voice rising above the weird hum. He staggered backwards, and the amulet around his neck winked out. When the all-revealing light was quenched, so too was the light of the iridescent green whatever it was.

Reed Richards performed a flawless Vulcan-style eyebrow raise. Just the one. No hint of movement in the other. "Fascinating," he said. "The," he hesitated, "The entity's structure resembles certain 3-sphere models." He looked to Doctor Strange. "Stephen, can you tell us anything?"

Stephen Strange's eyes were wide. "Ms. Frost was right to summon us for this," he said. "Although I do not know precisely what the entity is, its power is almost unimaginably vast. Yet an enchantment has created a human being around and within an entity which has as little in common with us as we have with an amoebas. The power required for such a feat is simply enormous. Prohibitively so. That someone was able to transform such a being into a human is troubling. That they also had the power to reorder the memories of those who surrounded its entry point is only to be expected. That it would then botch that reordering, that it could be blocked by even the strongest of natural telepaths, no offense to Ms. Frost is perhaps the most worrying fact of all. So much power expended to bind the entity, to transform it, to make it a girl, and yet the spell to make you all remember her was so poorly targeted..." He stroked his beard thoughtfully. "I will need time to think on this. To conduct the proper research, and to perform divinations." He spoke the words of a spell, moving his hands in complex gestures as he did, and a wind stirred the air. "I have send a message to Wong. He will bring the needed supplies and materials. In the mean time, I would like to speak with this girl. Awaken her, if you would."

Emma did.

Dawn Summers opened her eyes and woke up with a gasp. Her eyes darted around the room, wide with fear, and she sat up and scooted as far back from the people in the room as she could without falling off the bed. "Xan… Xander?" she asked.

"I'm here," Karen said, walking to Dawn's bedside slowly so as not to startle her. When Karen responded to the name 'Xander,' Iron Man took note.

As soon as Karen was in arm's reach, Dawn grabbed her into a terrified hug, putting Karen between herself and a room full of strangers. "What happened?" Dawn asked. "We were talking, and then I woke up here, and…" she trailed off, struggling to find the words to communicate her distress.

"Dawn, we're trying to figure out what happened," Karen said, trying not to think about the Entity that was within and around the girl now embracing her. "It's really important that you stay calm until we can, OK?"

"Sure," Dawn said, a note of terrified panic entering her voice. "I only just woke up in a weird hospital surrounded by even weirder old men, you, and Skanky the Wonderstripper with no idea how I got here. Why wouldn't I be calm? This situation just SCREAMS 'keep calm and carry on." By the end of her last sentence, she was all but shrieking her words, and was visibly hyperventilating.

Karen shot Emma a placating look, and then regarded Dawn seriously. "Dawn, that's enough." When she spoke, her voice was filled with quiet authority, with calm reassurance, and Dawn seemed to respond to it, and almost too well. Karen didn't glance at Xavier or Emma. The girl stilled, going from full blown panic attack to simply sad, her eyes filled with unshed tears. Like someone had flipped a switch in her head. It was one of the creepier things that Karen had seen, and she directed a mental glare at Emma. 'Stay out of her head, damn it,' she thought, knowing that whichever had done it would hear here.

Professor Xavier looked questioningly at Emma. Emma didn't visibly react.

It took Karen a second before she was able to go on, but go on she did, "These are good people," she said, "and they're going to help us figure this out."

"... Okay," Dawn whispered. She swallowed heavily, and then looked up. "But Xander?" she asked.

"Yeah?"

Dawn cast a suspicious look at the assembled Illuminati. "If these guys try anything weird," she said, "when Buffy gets here, she's going to beat them to death with her new pernach."

"Pernach?" Karen asked.

Dawn nodded. "Giles gave it to her. She named it Perny."

Karen couldn't help cracking a smile. "I'll make sure they know," she said. It was strange, and a little hard to explain: Karen had never met the girl before, but there was a certain easy familiarity about her. Buffy hadn't had a sister, but Dawn acted like what Karen would have figured Buffy's sister would act like. "Do you think you could answer a few questions?"

Dawn shrugged, performing disinterest like the teenager she appeared to be. "Whatever," she said.

Doctor Strange took that for assent. "Ms. Summers," he said, "My name is Stephen Strange. I am the Sorcerer Supreme of this world."

Dawn regarded the man suspiciously. "I'm guessing that means more than just you being served with sour cream and tomatoes."

Doctor Strange looked spectacularly unamused. "Quite," he said. "It means that I am the greatest living magic-user upon this world. I was chosen to be the guardian of this world, and I am the highest magical authority within it. Do you understand?"

Dawn nodded. "I understand," she said.

"Do you know what you are?"

Dawn blinked. "What I am?" She looked at Karen questioningly, and Karen shrugged. Fear crept back into Dawn's eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Do you know what you are?" Strange asked again. There was a sense of rising power in the air. He seemed to grow taller in the infirmary.

"Um. A teenager? Very confused?"

"Thrice I ask and done," Strange said, and there was a strange weight to those words, "Do you know what you are?"

Dawn flinched, and then shook her head, "I don't understand what you're asking," she insisted.

"Thank you, Ms. Summers," Doctor Strange said. He turned to the others. "She speaks the truth," he informed them, and Emma and Charles both nodded in agreement. Strange made a gesture and muttered a few quiet words. There was a faint light which quickly faded. They began to talk, then, Iron Man, Reed Richards, Doctor Strange, Professor Xavier, Namor, and Emma, and though their lips moved, no sound came from them, and there was a strange blurring of the air that made lip reading impossible.

Karen looked to Dawn with a half-smile. "Believe or not, I know exactly what it's like to suddenly find yourself in an unfamiliar place surrounded by weirdos," she said.

Dawn didn't smile. She was too busy trying to look unaffected, like she didn't care what those people were talking about despite the fact that she desperately wanted to know. "I guess," she said.

"Hey," Karen said, "Just be glad you didn't wake up in a new body like I did."

Dawn looked up at Karen. "... Xander?" she asked.

"It's Karen, now," Karen said. "Anyways, don't you already have a Xander?"

Dawn frowned slightly, "He's not…" She stopped herself in mid sentence. Whatever she'd been about to say, Karen would never know. "Right," she said. "Karen. You don't have any idea who I am, do you." It wasn't a question.

Karen's lips thinned. She didn't really want to say 'yes,' even though she'd already said as much.

Dawn looked down. "I thought maybe earlier you were just being mean," her voice cracked, "but you really don't know me."

She could lie to the girl. Claim to remember her. Claim to know all about her. It would fall apart pretty quickly, but she could do it. When Karen saw the look on Dawn's face, she almost did it. Almost spoke the lie. But instead, she swallowed, shook shook her head helplessly, and admitted, "No. I don't."

Dawn shut her eyes. "I wish you did," she said. She waited expectantly. Nothing happened. Her face fell.

What the hell had that been about? Unsure of exactly how to respond to that bit at the end, Karen just smiled sadly. "Sorry," she said. "But if you really are Buffy's sister, I'll make sure you stay safe until she finds you, okay?"

Dawn didn't answer.

"Okay?" Karen asked.

Dawn looked up, and Karen saw that she was crying. Something clenched in her chest at the sight. "Okay," Dawn whispered.

After that, there was little to do but wait. Karen could hear the distant ringing of the bell signalling the end of class in the school above. She'd missed Emma's ethics class. Emma had, too. She looked towards the classroom to see if Ms. Pryde was substituting again, but it was too far away, and through too much material. There was plenty to see through the walls even if she couldn't see clear to the classrooms, though. A few rooms distant, in Beast's laboratory, the blue-furred, leonine mutant was using some kind of scanner to examine a man with dark hair in a black and white costume. The man, whoever he was, seemed more bored than anything else. Above above her and a couple of floors removed, a bald chinese man was walking through the atrium. His heart kept a steady, sedate beat. She could see it peeking out between his ribs if she didn't actively pay attention to the surface of his skin. Dawn's heart was beating a lot faster. Dawn had said something. She'd repeated herself twice, and was frowning at her now. Karen's attention snapped back to her immediate surroundings, and she smiled apologetically. "Sorry," she said. "Spaced out there for a second."

Above, another bell rang, signalling the start of the next class. Karen was now missing Advanced Combat. Also, the Xavier Institute had advanced combat classes for its students. Which was simultaneously awesome and terrifying. There was a rotating teacher for that one. Colossus had just finished his unit, and she wasn't sure who was going to be covering it today. "So Dawn," Karen said, "Tell me about what's happened in Sunnydale since I left?"

Dawn seemed agreeable to that. So they talked about Sunnydale, what Dawn remembered, and what had happened since Halloween, and the place Dawn remembered really did seem identical but for the fact that there had never been a Dawn Summers in Karen's Sunnydale. Wong came and went with Doctor Strange's supplies, and Strange went into a side room to begin his divinations. The privacy spell Strange had put up came down as he left the room.

"...So after Mom got mind-controlled by an evil robot and his mind-controlling cookies, we decided that from then on, all potential boyfriends had to be tested for signs of being robots, vampires, or demons before the first date," Dawn said.

"Mrs. Summers knows?" Karen asked.

"About the supernatural? No. She's totally in denial."

"... Ah." Karen thought about that. "Was that before or after you learned that getting tattoos can lead to being possessed by demons?"

Dawn shrugged. "After."

Karen grinned a little at the sheer absurdity of what she'd heard. "... I miss Sunnydale," she said.

"You could always come back," Dawn suggested, and her tone was just a tiny bit too much like someone trying to sound casual.

_You could always come back._ Karen looked down at the ground, her good mood evaporating. "... You've already got a Xander," she said quietly. "You can't miss someone when they're not gone. What would I be going back to?"

"Your friends? Your family?"

Karen didn't reply.

* * *

><p>When Kyle Rayner arrived upon Earth 616, he hadn't been sure what to expect. Sure, he'd been there before, back during the Kroma incident, when the Justice League had been pitted against a team from Earth 616 called the Avengers. He'd even gotten to know some of those Avengers. Hawkeye had been surprisingly good company, and despite the years that had passed since the last time he'd seen them, he still thought of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver as friends. He was actually hoping to visit the three of them while he was here if he got the chance.<p>

He emerged from a green crackling portal generated by his own ring and took a moment to situate himself. He had left the New Earth universe at Lagrange point 1, and arrived in 616 at the same point. The creation of the portal between the two worlds had been easier than he'd expected, and he wasn't entirely sure why. Something to investigate later, when there wasn't an enormous refugee crisis brewing and a brand new Green Lantern - the only one of his kind in Earth 616 - who the Guardians had decided that he made the best person to train. With an act of Will, Lantern Kyle Rayner shot off towards Earth 616. He hit atmo in less than a minute, decelerated, and came down north of New York City, heading for the coordinates Iron Man had supplied.

"Ring," he said as he descended, "Search local databases for contact information for the Avengers, Wanda Maximoff, Pietro Maximoff."

A moment later, his ring reported, "Contact information found. Connecting to Avengers Tower private message center. Connecting to Pietro Maximoff private voicemail. Connected."

Kyle grinned. "Send a message. Message follows: Wanda, Pietro, Clint, it's Kyle. Long time no see. I'm in town, and will be for the immediate future. Are any of you going to be free in the next couple days?" He rattled off a cell phone number which would automatically be connected to his ring's communications system as his contact number, and then concluded his message.

"Confirmed," the ring's AI said. "message sent."

He spent the rest of his descent with a smile on his face. Well, the rest of his descent until he was met by a pair of giant flying robots. He'd contacted the locals ahead of his approach to the planet, but he hadn't been expecting anything like this. When Kyle actually reached the school, he looked about in open disbelief. The place surrounded by thick concrete wall topped with barbed wire and with regularly spaced guard towers, each of them manned by American soldiers. The property was pretty clearly divided into two major sections: the school and its immediate surroundings, and a refugee camp that was slowly becoming a refugee city. Most of the buildings were still large tents and other temporary shelters, but construction work was apparently ongoing. A dozen new buildings stood amongst the tents and temporary shelters, and a dozen more were under construction. It wasn't as run down as most refugee camps he'd seen, but it still had all the signs. The people in the camp didn't look you in the eye. They didn't linger about, not travel alone, as if they feared predators. The presence of armed soldiers didn't help. Most striking of all, though, was the sheer contrast between the parts of the property set aside for the school and the parts dominated by refugees. The staggering disparity of wealth between the two was almost unreal. His ring beeped, then, indicating that it had completed its scan of the refugees, and his eyes narrowed at the results: they were all metahumans. All of them.

Something was very wrong here.

* * *

><p>Doctor Strange came back into the room an hour later looking tired. There were circles under his eyes that weren't there before, and Karen could smell the faint aroma of recently dried sweat. The others looked up when he came in, and all conversation ceased.<p>

"My friends," he said, "The news I bring is… dangerous. Simply knowing it may make each of you a target. Before I share what I have learned, I would give each of you a chance to walk out the door, and so retain the safety of ignorance."

Dawn got up and started to walk for the door. She stopped when Iron Man stepped in front of the door. "Very funny," he said.

Dawn shrank back from power-armor clad man, clearly intimidated.

"Perhaps Karen should depart," Reed Richards suggested.

"Not gonna happen," Karen said.

"Very well," Doctor Strange said. And then he told them. Told them all about the Old Ones, of their nature, that the entity within Dawn was one such creature, bound and transformed into a human girl. "She is an an innocent who nonetheless is and contains within her a transcendent being which both is and governs the borders between realities. She is the Key, child of Tawil At-U'mr, and kin to the dread Shuma-Gorath who walked the Earth in the Hyborian Age. I have traced the spell that thus transformed her and transported her here to its source, and it is a place well familiar to me, but more familiar, I think, to Karen Zor-L."

Dawn stared at Doctor Strange, her jaw dropped open. "_What_?" she whispered.

Strange looked apologetic. "I am sorry that you had to learn of it this way, child. But you deserve to know, and I would not see this truth kept from you."

Dawn's face was ashen, her eyes wide, her jaw still dropped open slightly. "No," she whispered, backing away. "It's not true. I don't believe you." Her voice rose to a shout, "I don't believe you!" Then she turned and sprinted away faster than any human could possibly have run, directly into the back wall of the infirmary. There was a roaring sound, and a flare of heat and blue light as she ran _through_ the wall, leaving a perfectly round hole and a lingering smell of ozone in her wake. Another roar and another flash came an instant later.

'Holy crap,' Karen thought. 'What kind of power was that?' The others in the room all rose to their feet, but Karen held up a hand. "I'll go after her."

Emma nodded.

Karen flew through the hole after the distraught young woman; behind her, the Illuminati exchanged dark looks.

She found Dawn in a storage closet down the hall from the Danger Room, sobbing loudly. She didn't look up when Karen opened the door, and her tears weren't pretty. Her face got blotchy, and her makeup - not terrible for her age, but still too much and inexpertly applied - was running. "Hey," Karen said.

Dawn didn't answer.

Karen sat down next to the younger girl, and Dawn tried her best to ignore her. So Karen just sat down beside her on the floor of the storage closet, not saying anything, just being there, her arm around Dawn's shoulder. After a few minutes, Dawn leaned against her and kept crying. It took a good ten minutes before she looked up at Karen with red eyes and a runny nose and asked, "Am I real?"

That question hit a little too close to home. "Yeah," Karen said, her voice thick with emotion. "Yeah, you are."

"But I'm a thing, right? A monster that just looks like a girl?"

"Join the club," Karen replied. "I'm president. You can be treasurer, if you want."

Dawn tried not to smile. "No way," she said, pretending she wasn't utterly devastated, "If I'm joining the club, I'm at least Vice President."

They didn't say anything after that. They just sat there together on the floor of the supply closet, the door left open, Dawn still trembling and leaning against the much taller Karen. They were still there when Emma Frost found them twenty minutes later.

Karen looked up.

"We have come to a decision," Emma said.

"I heard," Karen replied. When Emma raised an eyebrow, she indicated her ears. "Super-hearing." And so she had. She'd heard their discussions. They'd gone through a number of unpleasant options. Namor had suggested having Doctor Strange simply undo the girl, and return her to her Old One self. No one at the table had liked that idea, not only for the moral reasons, but also because they had no idea what the release of so much energy would do. What if it destroyed Westchester? What if it destroyed the Eastern Seaboard? Or worse? The possibility of relocating her to the Negative Zone was discussed, but no one was willing to risk what might happen if a transdimensional being reacted badly with being sent through a portal to that or any other plane until they knew more. Sending her to Shi'ar space was out: there was a bit of a revolution going on there at the moment. Sending her elsewhere was also out, and not just because they thought that Karen would probably follow her and cause an intergalactic incident, and not just because it could be delivering a potential weapon into the hands of someone else, but also because Reed Richards's long range sensors had begun picking up some disturbing hyperwave distress signals coming from the region of space around the Nova Corps' home territories. Something was on the move in the cosmos. Something dark. Other locations Dawn might be sent presented similar, if unrelated problems.

"Given how many things we do not know about Dawn, the Key, the magic that created her, and the nature of what mutant powers she inherited from Polaris and Havok," Emma began, and Dawn shivered at the reminder, "We have elected to wait and see."

"What does that mean?" Karen asked.

"It means that until her sister arrives to collect her, this school has acquired a new student," Emma replied.

Dawn blinked. "... Wait. You're making me go to _school_?"

The look Emma gave Dawn could have slain Galactus at a distance of seven parsecs.

Dawn shivered. "Right. School. Yay school!"

"Come with me, dear, and I will get you sorted out and settled into a room in the girls' dorm." When Dawn hesitated and looked at Karen, Emma arched a delicate eyebrow. "You can tell Karen all about it when you see her again later this evening," she said, placing a slight emphasis on the word, 'Karen.'

Dawn rose to her feet with some reluctance, but nodded and moved to follow Emma. It was only then that Emma paused and looked back at Karen over her shoulder. "Ms. Zor-L," she said.

Karen stood up. "Um, yeah?"

"You have publicly flouted the authority of a teacher who was acting properly and within the bounds of his responsibilities. You disobeyed his direct instruction, behaved towards him in a manner that was so disrespectful that it beggars belief, forced your way into a secret meeting in the restricted area of the school, and you have an unexcused absence from three classes for the day." Emma's voice had grown so cold as to be practically arctic. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

Karen shook her head. "No," she said.

"Very well," Emma said. "Detention. You are giving me your lunch period every day for the next two weeks plus suspension from all mission duties for any X-Men team for an equivalent period. This is your only warning, Ms. Zor-El. This will not happen again. I may give second chances, but I do not give a third. Do you understand me?"

Karen swallowed, getting that awful sinking feeling in her stomach. "I understand," she said.

"Good." She gestured to Dawn. "Come along, Ms. Summers."

They walked away.

* * *

><p>Classes were over for the day by the time Karen got back up to the main levels of the school. The Three-in-One were waiting for her by the elevator. When she emerged, Irma smiled at her, and the Phoebe and Celeste each nodded. Karen glanced back and forth between them, not entirely sure what was going on. Then Phoebe and Celeste moved off towards the Girl's Dorm, leaving Karen and Irma alone. Well, as alone as you could be in a boarding school that was doubling as a mutant refugee camp.<p>

"Hey Irma," Karen said, "Do you know how to get in touch with the New Avengers?"

Irma looked at her inquisitively. Then she apparently glanced into Karen's thoughts, because her expression became completely neutral. "Are you sure you want to do this?" she asked.

Karen hesitated a bare half-second before nodding. "Of course I'm sure." She frowned. "Do I not look like I'm sure?"

"You seem pretty sure," Irma said.

"Good," Karen said. "Because I am. Sure."

"Sure," Irma said.

Karen frowned suspiciously. "So can you get in touch with Wiccan?"

Irma nodded. She produced her phone - an advanced model like what Karen had, which were way better than the phones people had had back in Sunnydale - tapped on the screen, and then waited. About ten seconds later, her phone buzzed.

Karen blinked. "What was that?" she asked.

"I send him a text. He responded."

"What's a text?"

Irma regarded Karen with a look of flat disbelief. "You can't be serious."

They had left the atrium by this time, and gone out into the courtyard in front of the school. "I keep forgetting it's still 1997 where you're from," Irma said. "Do you have your phone with you?"

Karen nodded, producing the device. Irma spent the next three minutes showing Karen how to use it. How to send texts, how to use it to check her email, and so on. That was about the point that Karen realized that she hadn't checked her email today. Waiting in her inbox was a message from S.H.I.E.L.D. confirming that the charges against her had been dropped, and she was no longer under house arrest. She grinned. "Hey, I'm a free man!" She paused. "Woman." Another pause. "Soon to be man again." Another pause. "So what did he say?"

Irma didn't roll her eyes, but she gave the impression of it. "He said we can come on over."

Karen was about to lift off into the air when a loud male voice called from nearby, "Mother? Is that you?"

Karen lifted off, certain that nobody would be using that word to refer to her.

A well muscled blonde man with deep blue eyes put his hand on her shoulder, and she jumped a little. "Woah," she said, spinning to face him.

"Mother?" he asked again. "You… colored your hair?"

Karen felt a full body shudder of pure wigginess coming on at being called 'mother.' "Do I know you?" she asked.

The man set his jaw. "This again? Mother, surely you can not have forgotten your own son. Surely you can not have forgotten Equinox!"

Every student from the Xavier institute in hearing distance stopped what they were doing and turned to listen to the conversation.

Karen stared at the man - at Equinox - recognition slowly dawning. Oh. Oh hell. "... weren't you retconned?" she asked.

Equinox looked confused. "I am uncertain as to your meaning, mother."

Karen grimaced. "Yeah. Look. I'm not your mother, and I'm pretty sure Power Girl isn't, either. I know you think I'm Kara Zor-L, but I'm not. I'm her clone. Sister. Sister-clone."

"I am not sure I understand," Equinox said.

"You know what an identical twin is?" Karen asked.

Equinox nodded.

"I'm that. I'm Kara's twin sister. Karen."

"Oh," Equinox said. Then he brightened. "I did not know mother had a sister," he boomed cheerfully. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Aunt Karen."

Karen managed not to cringe at being called that. She forced a smile on her face. "How did you get here? Is your… um, Great Grandfather with you?"

"He is not," Equinox said, his voice thundering through the courtyard. "Arion the Immortal refuses to see the error of his ways in supporting Pandora's crusade within the Flashpoint. He remains a prisoner of the Stratans. I…" he hesitated, "I was wrong to have assisted him. He said it was vital to securing my destiny. I am here because the Stratans have encouraged me to visit with the people of this world. Under supervision, of course. My chaperone is not far away." He pointed to a woman with dark pink hair, smooth blue skin, and overlarge eyes who lingered a few dozen yards distant. "They have said it would be good for me to meet ordinary humans and ordinary metahumans. That it would broaden my perspective."

"Ah," Karen said. She wasn't sure what to say next. "You had a falling out with Arion?"

Equinox's face fell. He looked down at the ground. "I…" he began in that same booming voice only to trail off. He started again, this time his voice merely inappropriately loud, and tinged with sadness. "After mother's most recent revelations, he would have nothing to do with me. I am a failure, Aunt Karen. I was to be the Chosen One. A prophesied child whose birth heralded the dawn of a new age. A messiah, born of the granddaughter of Arion the Immortal and the royal blood of the True Atlanteans, born into a world that only I could save. And it was all a lie."

Equinox sighed. "My great grandfather has no use for a failed messiah, never mind that the circumstances of my birth were his fault to begin with. On top of that, my mother does not know me, and despite my prophesied role, the woman whose destiny was only to give birth to me seems far better able and equipped to save the world and usher in a new age than I could ever hope to be." A note of deep bitterness entered his voice. "I am a failure. A failure before I was ever born, and useless for the very purpose for which I was conceived."

"Don't say that," Karen said.

Equinox looked up. "Why not?"

Karen shuddered. "Because hearing you call me 'Aunt Karen' creeps me the hell out. Probably not as much as Kara hearing you call her 'mother,' but ye gads, man."

Equinox's expression grew stony. "I see," he said.

Irma spoke up then. "Karen, you're overreacting," she said, disapproval clear in her tone, "And you're being needlessly cruel. He's your nephew from an alternate timeline that may never have existed in the first place. It happens all the time."

Karen gave Irma a dubious look. "Well," she said sarcastically, "When you put it THAT way…" she trailed off suddenly. "Oh God, you're serious."

"Yes," Irma said..

Karen sighed. She was tempted to just leave, but guilt made her stop. As much as she might despise the character and everything he represented, it wasn't his fault he represented everything that was terrible about comic books in her mind. As much as his very existence irritated her, he had opened up to her, thinking that she would be sympathetic, and she'd thrown it back in his face. That wasn't right. She'd gone over the line. She turned back to the man. "Listen, Equinox?"

He didn't look up.

"A lot of people like to talk about fate and destiny. It's your destiny to do this. Your purpose to do that. It's why you were made. One of my best friends once walked to her death because she thought it was destiny."

"I am sorry for your loss," Equinox rumbled.

Karen shook her head. "She didn't stay dead. I kinda went after her. She drowned, but I got there in time to bring her back with CPR. Just because something is destined doesn't mean it's inevitable, and just because someone tells you what your purpose is doesn't mean they're right. You've got free will. Use it. Your destiny? Screw destiny. Screw destiny right in the face. Nobody gets to decide what your purpose is except you. Just like nobody gets to decide mine except me, and nobody gets to decide Kara's except her."

Equinox's let out a breath, and his expression softened. "... Thank you, Aunt Karen," he said.

It still felt really, really weird to be called that, but Karen nodded. "See you around, Equinox."

* * *

><p>Power Girl descended, coming down next to Karen and Supergirl on the rooftop. Gotham city lay below them in all its nightly splendour. Supergirl looked up as she landed. "Kara," she said.<p>

"Kara," Power Girl replied.

Karen had blinked at the sight of them both together in the same place. It was only really then, in that moment, that the fact Power Girl had been de-aged really sunk in. Power Girl was now the same age as Supergirl. And aside from different haircuts and Power Girl having a bigger bust, the two were identical. "Wow," she said.

Supergirl and Power Girl both glanced at Karen, and then at each other.

Supergirl frowned irritably. "Well, I see you've spawned. And gotten younger. Dare I ask?" Despite her harsh words, there was an easy familiarity in her tone, and a sense that it was all right for them to be harsh to each other sometimes. Karen briefly considered reminding Supergirl that she'd already explained her own origin. Then she figured it wouldn't help.

Power Girl smiled faintly. "It's a long story."

"I'll bet," Supergirl said.

Karen caught sight of her own reflection in the window right next to Supergirl's and Power Girl's. Right. Her dark hair and their busts aside, there were *three* identical girls, not two. It was more than a little bit surreal standing here with the two of them, looking like identical triplets plus a dye job and a breast reduction surgery. "Apparently, this is now happening."

"Apparently so," Supergirl confirmed. "This is weird. Alternate universe self. Clone of alternate universe self. Me. I thought having evil clones was more Kal's thing."

Power Girl shrugged. "I don't think the Cyborg Superman or really counts as a clone. Superboy is more 'weird unconventional offspring' than clone, and I still don't know what the heck Eradicator was."

Karen thought about that. Superman clones. She vaguely remembered one of her least favorite stories from when she was a kid younger. A moment's thought brought it to her mind more firmly. "Do Superman Red and Superman Blue count?" she asked.

Supergirl and Power Girl replied instantly and in perfect unison, "We do not talk about Superman Red and Superman Blue." Supergirl followed that up with a suspicious look as she asked, "How do you even know about that, anyways?"

"Karen?"

Karen blinked, coming back to the present moment. "Hmm?" she asked.

"We're here," Irma said. Right. New York. Karen decided that she needed to stop having flashbacks in the middle of flying places. Wasn't safe.

Wiccan's house was surprisingly nice. Sure, it was crammed in right next to the others around it with basically no yard, and that felt weird for someone from a suburban Sunnydale neighborhood, but it was three stories tall, will these really lovely terraced windows and a small flowering garden on either side of the tiny little walkway that lead from the street to the house.

They went up to the front door and knocked. Wiccan answered. He was skinny and ridiculously handsome. She almost would have called him… ok, no. Karen was not going to call a boy beautiful. No. Wasn't going to happen. He was about 5'8", and he had to look up to meet Karen's eyes. But there was a surety to his stance. A calm sort of assurance, a confidence that most teenagers just didn't have. He had strength in him, and not the kind that felt a desperate insecure need to be constantly asserting itself at others' expense. Karen actually got a little weirded out by how attractive she found him. Especially since she'd not ever had that reaction to a guy before. Sure, he wasn't Noriko or Cordelia level attractive, and he didn't even come close to Irma, but he was hot, and it was weird. Then she remembered Willow's 'sexuality is less binary and more spectrum' talk, took a deep breath, and forced herself to relax.

"Hello, Irma," he said politely. Then he looked at Karen, and there was recognition in those eyes. "I don't think I've met your friend," he said.

"Hey Billy," Irma said. "Billy, this is my girlfriend, Karen Zor-L. Karen, this is Billy Kaplan."

Billy offered a hand, and Karen shook it. "Nice to meet you, Karen," he said.

"You too," Karen said.

"Come on in," Billy said, gesturing in a welcoming fashion. "My parents are out at the moment, but they won't mind me having people over."

They went in. Billie closed the door behind them and then led them into the living room, where he sat down on a nice leather chair. A couch was free just across from it, and they sat down in it, hip to hip. "So," Billie said, "Irma's message said you needed my help. What can I do for you?"

Karen told him.

Billy blinked. "Are you serious?" he asked.

"People keep asking me that," Karen groused. "Can you change into a boy or can't you?"

"Sorry. Yeah, I can. It'll take a minute, though. You want set up a time, or just do it now?"

"I just wanna feel comfortable in my own skin again," Karen said. "Do it."

Irma said nothing.

Billy shrugged, and then held up his hands. Power began to gather around him, and he spoke the words, over and over like a mantra, "I want her to be a boy, I want her to be a boy, I want her to be a boy…"

Karen felt something _shifting_ inside her. The feeling of her body changing was incredibly disconcerting. Her breasts visibly shrank and her shoulders widened… and then her shoulders and breasts both reverted to normal.

"Wow," Billy said after a few seconds, "Your body is really stubborn about not being transformed." He looked closely at her. "Is that chaos magic in your aura? It looks… kind of familiar."

Karen frowned. "Does that mean you can't change me?"

"Oh, I can do it," Billy said. "It's just going to be harder than I thought." He started casting his spell again, pouring more and more power into it. Red energy seemed to curl around him and around Karen both as her body shifted, slowly, one part at a time, from female to male. Finally, Billy let out a breath. "There we go," he said.

The comfort Karen had been expecting to feel from being himself again, from being a guy again, it wasn't there. There weren't any mirrors in the living room, so Karen looked to Irma. "What do you think?" he asked.

Irma looked Karen's very male body up and down, taking in every detail. "I think you make just as gorgeous a boy as you do a girl," she said, and winked. "What do you think, Wiccan?"

Wiccan nodded, not at all shy about his own appreciation for the now breathtakingly handsome Kryptonian male with his sixpack abs and his perfectly toned... Wiccan forced himself not to continue that train of thought. 'Think of Teddy,' he urged his brain. 'I'm in a committed relationship, but I'm not blind,' his brain replied. "Uh..." he said.

Irma grinned wickedly. "There, you see? He's speechless." Her eyes flashed, and Karen saw an image of himself floating in the air in front of him, and he stopped.

"... Wow," Karen said. She stared at the image, a sense of vertigo coming over her. Him. "Just… give me a second to get used to it."

They did. Karen waited, and seconds turned to minutes. One minute became two, became five, became ten, became half an hour. Billy got up to get drinks. Irma took a sparkling water, cracked it, sipped at it. Karen continued to wait.

He didn't want to admit it. He didn't want to admit that like this, his whole body felt wrong. His center of gravity was wrong. The weight between his legs made his skin crawl. The way his chest felt now was just… off. The boy in Irma's image, the body, his body, it wasn't Xander. It was a male version of Divine. He was every bit as perfect a male specimen as she was a female, and yet…

… and yet…

A single tear traced its way down his cheek, and when he sighed, it was the death-knell of a dream. He shook his head. "It doesn't feel right," he admitted.

"I didn't think it would," Irma said.

Karen tried to glare at her, but his heart just wasn't in it. "Why'd you agree to take me here to have Billy change me into a boy, then?" he asked, disappointment making his words taste bitter.

Irma reach her arms around him, pressing her body to his as she kissed him. He responded, and it felt incredibly weird to have an erection. Especially in clothes that were now too small for him. "Because you asked me to," Irma said.

"... do you think there's something wrong with me?" Karen asked. "Am I some kind of pervert who gets off on being a girl?"

Irma shook her head. "No. Karen. It took months for you to get used to being a girl, and I'm sure you could get used to being a guy again if you wanted to, but you're not the same as you were when you were first transformed. Nobody is ever the same as they were. We're all changing, all the time. You ten years ago would probably have a hard time with you five years ago. But you didn't just change over time the way everyone does. There's also…"

"Divine," Karen said.

Irma nodded.

"I… I took her into me. I didn't kill her. I didn't try to smother her. I could have, but she was just a kid. Mentally, I mean." Karen looked a little uncomfortable. "So instead of smothering her, we became the same person."

Irma nodded again. "And Divine has always been a girl. Even so, it's up to you, Karen. This is about you being comfortable in your own skin. Do whatever you need to do. Do you want to give this a chance, spend a few days or weeks as a boy to see if you can get used to it, or do you want to go back to being a girl?"

Karen was silent for a full minute before she took a breath and said, "Change me back,"

Billy nodded, and began the spell. It was easier than turning her into a guy had been. Far easier. Her body didn't resist this change, nor did the magic that was still bound to it.

_Change me back._ How weird was it that that was how he thought of returning to her female body? Back before she'd merged with Divine, she'd never thought that way. Of course, before she'd merged with Divine, she'd been in Kara's body, and she never would have done this if it had meant forcing Kara to be a guy - the very idea of Power Girl as a guy made her skin crawl. But as the change took place, and his male body returned to female, Karen sighed with relief. There was no going back.

... hang on a second. Something felt 'off.' She was female, sure, but there was a... weight. She looked down, noticing the slight bulge in pants that were designed to fit her, and saw what was beneath with her x-ray vision. And she had both. The male organ sat directly above the female one, growing right out of where the… oh boy. And she had no balls for some reason. Oh. Right. Because she had ovaries. Or whatever kryptonians had that did what ovaries did. Didn't look quite the same as what humans had when she looked at herself with her x-ray vision, but it did the same thing. Well, it probably did the same thing. She shot Billy a baleful look. "Very funny," she said.

Billy smirked. "Sorry. Let me handle that for you."

Karen blushed to the tips of her ears. "Could you maybe rephrase that?" she asked.

Irma began to laugh.

Billy's smirk widened into a full blown grin. "Nope." Then he spoke the words to make it go away, and Karen let out a breath.

"Thanks," she said.

"Any time." He paused. "Seriously. Any time. Teddy's gonna be pissed I didn't take any pictures of that last part."

"Teddy?"

"My boyfriend," Billy said by way of explanation.

He said it casually. It wasn't any kind of grand revelation to him. It wasn't deviant. It wasn't a big deal. It was just his boyfriend. Back in Sunnydale, when she'd been Xander, that would have been weird. She'd have been okay with it after a while, but it would have been weird. Here, after everything she'd been through, it just didn't seem like that big of a deal. In fact, what DID seem odd about that statement was something else entirely. Karen blinked. "Your boyfriend has a fetish for…"

"Just sometime," Billy said. "Mostly we stay the way we are, but every now and again…" He winked, "Shapeshifters. They like to mix things up. Go figure."

Irma finally got her laughter under control, bringing it down to the level of the occasional giggle. "Billy Kaplan," she said, "you're horrible."

Squick. Oh so much squick. "I'm just going to go repress this memory and pretend you changed me straight back into a girl," Karen said.

Billy laughed. "Repress away," he said cheerfully.

"And thanks, Billy," Karen said. She looked him in the eye, then. "Thank you," she repeated.

Billy nodded. "You're welcome."

* * *

><p>The sun had gone down by the time Karen and Irma left Billy's house, and they didn't fly away. They walked. Karen had been about to lift off into the air, but Irma gave her arm a tug and gestured to the sidewalk. At Karen's questioning look, Irma had smiled enigmatically. "It occurred to me," Irma said, "That we still haven't gone on that date."<p>

Karen's eyes widened slightly, and her heart beat a little faster. "Now?" she asked.

"What do you want to bet that if we go back to changed, something will happen that prevents us from leaving?" Irma asked. "Now."

"I don't know if I'm really in the mood for much after…" The memory of what it felt like when Billy had turned her into a guy came rushing back. Her stomach sank, and her skin crawled.

"That's why," Irma said. "When was the last time you went out and did something fun? Just to do something fun?"

Karen thought about that. "I don't remember," she admitted.

"That settles it, then," Irma said. "It doesn't have to be romantic if you're not up for it. We can just be two friends going out together and having a good time."

Karen smiled. "Okay."

They took the subway to the Times Square 42nd Street station. It was the middle of the evening rush, and the subway station was crowded, full of people who were on their way home, or heading out to dinner, or heading out to catch a show, or a thousand other things. It was crowded enough that Karen felt a little uncomfortable. People were too close. She got jostled a few times, bumped a few more, just on account of how many people there were, and people - mostly men - followed her with their eyes. Not everyone, but enough that it was noticeable. At one point, she'd had to shove a guy who got a little too close even within the tight confines of the crowded subway car, but she didn't think anything of it at the time. Person way too close to her, shove person away, person dealt with.

"Are you all right?" Irma asked as they exited the car.

Karen blinked, not really sure why she was asking. "Sure, why?"

Irma looked at her for another second before she seemed to relax. "Nothing," she said.

They left the subway station and walked out into Times Square. It almost overwhelmed Karen. There was so much light, so many people, signs and music and the buzz of the crowd, and honking car horns, and she was right there in the press, not floating above it like she usually did, and it was beautiful. It actually took her a second to make sense of what she was seeing visually, but once she did, she grinned. "Wow," she said.

Dinner came first. There was a shawarma place about a block away that Irma wanted to go to. Karen wasn't actually sure what a shawarma was, but she figured she'd give it a shot. Turned it It was sort of a wrap with slow cooked meat and hummus, tahini, pickled turnips, and other vegetables, and it was pretty darn good. They talked for a while. Not about themselves, but about other things. Silly things. Things that didn't matter, and were therefore incredibly important. Favorite movies and television shows at first, music later. Only when they were about to leave did their conversation hit on things closer to home. And then, as they were walking out, Karen said, "Hey, can I get your opinion on something?"

Irma nodded.

"My code name, Nightwing. It's not me. Do you have any ideas for a replacement that aren't of the awful?"

Irma thought about it. "Gemini?"

Karen blinked. "Gemini?"

Irma nodded. "You know. The twins?"

Karen rolled her eyes. "I see what you did there." She paused. "I was thinking maybe something like Defender or something, but that seems a little generic."

"More generic than Spider-Man?" Irma asked.

"Point."

"You could call yourself Supergirl," Irma suggested. "Though you might not enjoy being stuck with 'girl' in your name when you're older. Next time you see her, ask Power Girl what she thought of being Power 'Girl' when she was twenty five. See what she says."

"Maybe something like… Valkyrie?"

"Already taken," Irma said.

"Ultra Girl?"

"Again with the 'girl' in the name."

Karen frowned. "Right." She thought. "Flamebird, maybe."

Irma considered that, then nodded. "Could work," she said. "Though that will associate you with the Phoenix in the minds of anyone who knows of it."

"Hmm," Karen said. They were back at Times Square, now, and the crowds became very thick again - thick enough that they had to stop talking about superhero code names. "All right," Karen said. "Where to next?"

Irma gestured to a big display out in front of a theatre. "Have you seen Wicked?" she asked.

Karen looked. The banner for the musical had a woman all in white whispering into the ear of a surprisingly sexy looking Wicked Witch of the West. "Never heard of it."

That settled it. They bought tickets and went in. The next showing was beginning in forty five minutes, and they got reasonably good seats. Karen was surprised by how much she liked the show, even if Irma was disappointed that they didn't have Idina Menzel in the lead anymore. Afterwards, they went to a club that Karen could only suppose was what the Bronze wanted to be when it grew up. Neither was old enough to get in, but when they presented their IDs, Irma looked at the bouncer, and his eyes seemed to relax, and he waved them both in.

They danced for a while, and it was good. Awkward at first, because Karen's dance moves were a bit on the unimpressive side, but Irma showed her how to do it, and it got more fun as time went on. There, in the light and the haze, most of the people around them just having a good time, most of them drinking, letting the music roll over them. The rhythm of it got inside you in a way that was hard to describe, but it was fun. A few times a guy got it into his head to try to dance with one of them. Irma took a few up on the offer. Karen didn't. Things went well until Irma had to step out to the ladies' room for a minute.

Karen stood alone off to the side, sipping at the drink she had just bought and watching the crowd. Just a coke. She was quite rationally terrified of the thought of a drunk Kryptonian, so had avoided the alcohol.

A voice filtered through the crowd, then, unfamiliar, but unmistakably the voice of a young man. "Woah. Check out that big-tittied slut over there."

Her first reaction was disbelief. Did that guy just call her… holy shit, he actually had.

"Woah," another young man said. "I dunno, man. She's probably a mutie."

"Why do you say that?" the first asked.

"You think there's a way to get those tits and that ass into that shirt and those pants without some kind of mutant power involved?"

The first man laughed. "If she is, then she's only good for one thing," he said lightly. "If not, maybe she can make sandwiches, too. Hey, I bet you I'm boning her by the end of the night." He was tall, maybe 6'3", with pale skin and short dirty blonde hair, and was wearing a polo shirt and trousers over golf shoes. Karen supposed that he was good looking as guys went, but he didn't do anything for her. Thank Crom.

"Nah, man," his friend said, "She's here with another girl."

The music was loud enough that no non-Kryptonian would have heard him, much less his companion's reply. Karen did. She sighed.

"Ain't no thing," the first guy replied cheerfully. "Tits and an ass like that is worth working for. You distract the other one when she gets out of the bathroom. I'll hit her up. And hey, maybe you'll get lucky, too!"

"... And I'm pretty sure she's hitting for the other team. I saw the way she and that blonde she was with were looking at each other, and I'm pretty sure they kissed at one point. It was totally hot."

The first guy grinned. "Nah, that just makes it hotter. Wouldn't be the first time I boned a lesbian. All it takes is some deep dickin', and they come around sooner or later." Then he repeated something he'd already said, and didn't seem to be aware that he'd done it, "Hey, when the other one comes out of the bathroom, I want you there by the door to distract her. Imma go score me some boo-tay." He slid his right middle finger back and forth through a ring formed by his left thumb and index finger in a demonstrative fashion, and then weaved his way through the crowd towards Karen.

"Hey," the guy said. He looked her in the eye and smiled at her, and it was nice smile. It made him look handsome.

Karen forced down her bubbling irritation and met his gaze. "Hi," she said, her tone completely neutral.

"So," he said. "Is that a mirror in your pocket?" He waggled his eyebrows. "Because I can see myself in your pants."

Karen's jaw dropped open ever so slightly as she regarded him incredulously. "Excuse me?"

His aw-shucks grin was a little spoiled by his blush. "Sorry. I usually do better than that. But hey, at least I didn't say something really bad, like," he put on an overly dramatic voice, "With great penis comes great responsibility." He held out a hand. "I'm Will. And you are?"

Karen almost laughed at the guy's sheer audacity. She might have if the whole experience of being hit on by the guy weren't so utterly creepifying. His blinking rate came into synch with hers, which was weird, and was something she only noticed because, hey, Kryptonian senses give you a lot of things to notice.

She didn't take his hand.

Seriously. Did this sort of approach actually work? On women? … Uh… women who weren't her? Maybe if the woman in question had no standards and just wanted to get laid? Yeah. OK, that made sense. Didn't make the guy any less creepifying, but it made sense. "So very not interested," she said. She glanced across the crowd. No Irma yet. Damn it.

His smile didn't slip. He didn't lose momentum for a second. "Bet you would be if you gave me half a chance. I'm a decent guy." He matched her breathing rate next, and Karen felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. "I can be good." His hand brushed against hers. There was something predatory in the movement.

Karen didn't move. She stood there facing him directly, looking him straight in the eye, fists clenched at her sides. "Don't touch me," she said.

He didn't break eye contact, but he seemed to realize that this wasn't going the way he wanted. There was a strange glint in his eye, and he reached out for her again. "Hey now, I understand. You're picky about the guys you let approach you. I get it." He grinned. "That just makes it more fun."

Karen started to move her hand away, but he moved just a tiny bit faster, taking her hand. She didn't break eye contact. "I said, don't touch me."

He didn't let go of her hand.

Her anger finally reached a boiling point, and Karen was talking before she actually intended to be, her anger spurring her words onwards, "Listen, Will," she said, and jerked her hand out of his, surprising him with her strength. "I'm going to explain this using very simple words so you can understand. You cannot have me. I am not interested. There is nothing you have that I want. There is nothing that you can do that will be anything more than mildly irritating to me. You cannot hurt me. If you try, you are only going to injure yourself. Now go away." She didn't know it, but her eyes flashed with an angry red light as she spoke.

For a split second, Will looked completely shocked, his eyes wide, his mouth slightly open. "You're a mutant!" He said it loudly, and it attracted the attention of other eyes. Then his eyebrows drew down and his lips thinned as he glowered at her from beneath lowered brows. "How dare you speak to me like that, you mutie bitch," he hissed. "Nobody talks to me like that. Nobody."

She still didn't break eye contact. "Go. Away."

Will's lips curled up to show teeth, and there was something very dark behind his eyes. He broke eye contact and stormed stormed away, and the crowd parted to allow his passage.

Irma returned a moment later. She hugged Karen, looking at her with concern. "Everything okay?" she asked.

Karen shrugged, allowing her anger to drain away. "I'm fine," she said. "Just not used to dealing with cavemen." She paused. "Dealing with cavemen who think I'm their prey." She paused again, this time with a disturbed look on her face. "... Holy monkey balls, that guy treats women like they're prey. Is that _normal_?"

Irma shook her head. "No," she said. "Most guys aren't like that."

"You've got but face," Karen said. At Irma's raised eyebrow, she amended, "Um, most guys aren't like that, but…?"

"Enough are," Irma said.

Karen felt something cold in the pit of her stomach. She felt eyes on her. A lot of people took note of her in the club. A few jealous looks. A few filled with desire. One or two looked upon her with contempt. A new song began. Something with a driving beat and a throbbing bass that she could feel in her chest when it hit notes that resonated with the building. She was about to ask Irma what she meant, but instead she asked, "Do you want to get out of here?"

Irma nodded. "Sure," she said, and took Karen's hand and squeezed it comfortingly. Karen squeezed back, though she took care to do it as lightly as she could.

They left the club hand in hand. The exit they took put them out in an alleyway. It was a narrow place, wide enough for one car to pass with only a little room on its right and left. The walls of the buildings on either side were covered in graffiti, some artistic, some not. There was a manhole a ways down the alley, and steam billowed out of it into the evening air

There were five men waiting for them in the alley. One of them - one wearing a white Friends of Humanity t-shirt over blue jeans looked up as they came out the door. "Ladies," he said.

Karen and Irma both paused.

That was when Will let go of the door and hit Karen from behind. He struck her on the back of the head with a beer bottle, hitting her as hard as he could. The bottle shattered against her skull. It didn't hurt her, but she wasn't expecting it and hadn't set herself against it. She fell to the ground. That didn't hurt, either, though it mussed up her clothes a little.

There was a confused moment when something was hit her head a couple of times, though it felt more like someone was very lightly tapping her head; there was a sickening crack, and Will took a sharp, pained breath. Then Karen grabbed the guy and, in spite of her anger, shoved him away from her as gently as she could. He staggered back into the other guys but didn't go down. Will and the other five guys began circling them like wolves who had cornered a deer. The truth was closer to wolves that had 'cornered' a pair of battle tanks, but they didn't know that.

"Back off," Karen said. "Last chance."

Irma began to concentrate.

"This the mutie who thinks she's too good for you, Will?" one of the other guys asked.

Will nodded. "And her girlfriend." He said that last word with contempt. He was limping, now, and trying not to show it. "How about we teach the two of them a lesson they won't ever forget?"

The other guys kept circling. Karen continued to stand there, not moving. Irma's eyes glowed, and the air in front of her shimmered.

"They're both mutants," the man with the Friends of Humanity shirt noted.

"I can't believe these uppity muties think they have some right to mingle with the rest of us," said a second man. "You'd think they would have gotten a clue after most of them lost their powers."

"Enough talk," Will said.

Will and his friends moved in for the kill.

Karen forced herself not to react. Irma could take care of any number of them, and she, despite how despicable these men were, she needed not to kill them. She was tempted. It would be easy. She wouldn't have to try hard. They had no idea how thin the thread was that their lives hung from. But that's not what Power Girl would do, and it's not what Superman would do. She opened her eyes. She was ready for this.

They split into two groups: half went for Irma, the other half for Karen.

Friends of Humanity guy came at Karen, delivering what, to any human woman, would have been a one hit knockout blow directly to her jaw, and would have shattered her jaw besides. She tilted her head slightly with the impact, trying to reduce its impact on the man. He still broke every bone in his hand. He howled in surprised agony even as Will and the other one came at her. Will still held part of the broken bottle in his hand, wielding it like a knife. He stabbed her with it, hard, jabbing it savagely into her belly.

The knife shattered against her impenetrable skin. Physics did the rest. Will screamed at the jagged shards of glass sliced open his hand, blood spraying from a laceration that had nicked a vein.

The third man, his eyes wide in terror, stopped short, backed away, and drew a gun from his jacket. Karen just looked at him. He leveled it at her and pulled the trigger twice. The first bullet hit Karen in the eye. It bounced. The bullet bounced off of her eyeball and went flying into the foot of one of Irma's attackers, who howled in agony. She plucked the second shot out of the air with her bare hands. Before he could fire the third, she had taken the gun right out of his hand, took it in hers, and crushed it into a ball of metal about the size of a ping-pong ball before his disbelieving eyes.

Karen blew a puff of super-breath at the man, and it knocked him off his feet. He lay there on the ground, stunned. She looked to Irma, then, whose three opponents each lay unconscious at her feet. None had gotten close enough to attack her. She felt a sense of fierce pride at that.

Will stared at her in utter disbelief. "... Who are you?" he asked.

"Who am I?" Karen asked, "What, _now_ you want to know?" Karen drew herself up to her full height, a full six feet tall, and looked upon him as if he were the most utterly insignificant creature she had ever had the displeasure to look upon. "I warned you, Will. I told you there was nothing that you could do that would be anything more than mildly irritating to me. You cannot hurt me, and you can not have me." Her eyes flashed red as she spoke the next three words: "**I. AM. DIVINE.**" She missed Irma's worried look. "And you," she let out a quiet snort, "are beneath me."

Will's face fixed itself into a rictus of hate. "You… fucking… bitch," he hissed.

She moved forward, then, ripping his shirt right off of him, the fabric tearing as if it were made of rice paper. She tore it into strips. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

"Making sure you don't die."

Even as Karen carefully, patiently wrapped his heavily lacerated, bloody hand in the remains of the shirt, he opened his mouth to spit out some new, vile, hateful thing. Karen interrupted him. "Hold still and shut up or I'll break your legs," she said cheerfully.

He shut up and held still.

She tied off the makeshift bandage and gave him a once-over with her x-ray vision. Aside from the lacerations on his hand, he'd broken his other hand punching her, and had a broken foot from where he'd stomped repeatedly on her head. Friends-of-Humanity shirt guy was in a similar state. All of the others were unconscious. A moment later, with Irma's telepathic assistance, Will joined them in that state. Karen turned to Irma. "What did you mean, 'enough are'?"

Irma studied Karen's face - or more likely, her thoughts - for a moment before answering. "When you lived in Sunnydale, as a guy, would you ever have gone out walking in a cemetery by yourself in the middle of the night?"

Karen blinked. "Of course not," she said.

"Why not?" Irma asked.

"Back when I was a guy," Karen made a face, "and there's a sentence I never thought I'd utter - I didn't have any powers. I wouldn't go into a place like that without at least having Willow with me."

"Why?"

"Because of the vampires," Karen said.

"Right," Irma said. "And if you were at the Bronze by yourself, and a really attractive girl you've never seen before was coming onto you, and wanted you to leave with her, would you?"

Karen shook her head. "No. Two reasons. One, because I don't wanna be a vampire's dinner. Two, because even if she's not a vampire, there's always the chance she'll be a Preying Mantis Lady or a dark witch who wants my blood for a ritual or something." She smirked a little at Irma's expression in regards to the last two. "Don't look at me like that. Those things are more common than you'd think."

"Dark alleys late at night?" Irma asked once she'd regained her composure.

"I'm gonna go with no," Karen replied.

"So you had things you did to avoid being taken by a vampire?" Irma asked.

Karen nodded, feeling vaguely uncomfortable. "Lots of things. Crosses. Holy water. Never invite anyone into your home. The best one was hanging out with the Slayer. Why are you asking me about…?" she trailed off as it all clicked together in her head. "Oh," she said. "Seriously?"

Irma nodded. "You and I probably aren't in any danger: not from strangers, not from people we know. But most girls don't have superpowers, Karen. What it comes down to is power and fear. Who has it. Who wields it. Individually, and as groups within the culture. When you lived in Sunnydale, you were afraid. That was rational. It was the Hellmouth. There really were terrible monsters in the night that were just _waiting_ for the chance to have you. There probably aren't as many guys like Will in New York as there were monsters in Sunnydale. Now, guys like Will aren't actually monsters. They're human beings who should know better. But we live in a world where if a woman gets raped, there's a hundred people ready to explain all the ways that '_she was asking for it_,' and the men who should know better? Well, '_boys will be boys_'. There's more to it than that. A lot more. It's complicated, and there are a thousand things I could say on this subject and not even scratch the surface. But that's the best I can do in five minutes."

Karen thought about that. "I…" The subject was making her uncomfortable, and it showed on her face. "I don't know," she said.

"What do you think would have happened to us tonight if we'd both been flatscans in the same situation?" Irma asked.

Karen really didn't want to think about that, but the answer seemed obvious enough. She shuddered. "Point," she said.

They used Will's cell phone to call 911 and report the incident. The woman on the other end of the line wanted them to stay on the phone, but Irma just let it drop from her telekinetic grip. Irma's telepathic voice whispered in Karen's though, then, with a distinctly wry tone, "All right, we've summoned medical help for the people who hurt themselves trying to hurt us. Anything else you'd like to do before the night's over?"

Karen thought about that. "... Yeah. I think there is. Come with me. I want to show you something."

"OK."

Karen picked Irma up Superman style. "Can you handle the upper atmosphere?"

Irma nodded, and with an effort of will, shifted into her Dark Phoenix costume.

Karen shot into the air, then, and the wind of their passage pressed Irma close against her chest. Up, up, and away they went into the clear night sky, higher and higher into thinner and thinner atmosphere until they could see the whole curvature of the Earth below, the lights of the eastern seaboard shining like stars upon the planet below. The moon and the stars were impossibly bright, impossibly clear, and Karen saw all of it; not just the visible spectrum, but the whole universe laid out above her, the lingering glow of the Big Bang suffusing it, objects and constellations in the night that no human eye could see, the radio-songs of the stars and the planets like distant music. And the sounds of the Earth below: every radio signal, every thermal glow, the hum of the cities, the sounds of conversation, a baby's first cry, the distant, desperate cry of a grown human drawing his last breath.

"Listen," she said, letting Irma float in the air under her own power now.

Irma raised an eyebrow.

Karen tapped her own temple with a finger. "Listen."

Irma Cuckoo listened. She listened through Karen's ears, saw through Karen's eyes, and in that moment, she saw and heard… everything. She stared down at the planet. '_... All the time?'_ she asked telepathically.

Karen nodded.

Neither one spoke for several seconds. And then Karen let go of Irma and said, "Come on."

Irma didn't have to ask what she meant. She saw it in her thoughts. '_Mother is going to be very annoyed,'_ she sent.

Karen grinned, and without another word she rocketed back towards the Earth, breaking the sound barrier as she went. Irma's eyes flashed, and a very faint fiery bird shape coalesced around her before she shot off after Karen's distant form.

There were people out there who needed saving.

END CHAPTER 01

Thus begins the next story arc for A New World in my View. :D


	30. Unfinished Business, Part I

"This is Michelle D'arcy, reporting live from the European headquarters of X-Corp, the non-governmental aid organization created by Mutant rights campaigner, Charles Xavier."

"Across France, across the continent, we're receiving bulletins that mutants have lost their powers. Repeated calls to X-Corp for a comment have gone unanswered, though it's believed that the building serves as a haven, not only for its staff, but for their families…"

The sound of an explosion. A terrible roar that thundered through Paris as the bottom floors of the skyscraper were blasted to rubble. It fell, collapsing sideways onto the surrounding buildings. A cloud of dust blotted out the sun. And on this day, on M-Day, it was only one tragedy amongst thousands.

_**No more mutants.**_

Just three words. Spoken so quietly that they almost could not be heard. Three words that changed the world.

Power Girl, with a perfect copy of Xander Harris' consciousness temporarily in charge of her body, fell from the sky above the Baxter building into downtown Manhattan at the precise moment that 90% of Earth's mutants permanently lost their powers. A flash of light was the only sign of that depowerment. Everyone on Earth saw it, sighted and blind alike, those awake and those sleeping. There was a red flash as the Scarlet Witch's power raced out across the universe. It had happened at 11:15 in the morning. It was Tuesday. And had Power Girl appeared anywhere else, her arrival might have gone entirely unnoticed. Even as it was, even with the Fantastic Four on hand to recover her from the crater, her arrival was an unremarkable event compared to the rest of that day. Who had time to attend to one girl falling from the sky on a day like today?

In the Xavier mansion, Emma Frost watched the fall of the X-Corp building on live television, with Scott and Alexander Summers at her side.

"Wanna bet they blame this on us?" Alexander asked. His shock of blonde hair stood stiffly above his quasi-helmet, and the blue lines of his costume stood out in sharp contrast against the black of the rest of it. He was afraid, and it showed in his voice. "Wanna bet this is only the beginning?"

Emma understood that. She was afraid, too. "The question is, Alexander," she said, "The beginning of what?"

Scott took her hand, and it felt warm even through both her gloves and his. "It'll be all right, Emma," he told her. "Just have faith."

She didn't laugh. The sound would have been too bitter for words if she had, and she had better control of herself than that. "How, Scott?" she asked. "Each time I think this is as bad as it can get, fate proves me wrong."

"First things first, people," Scott said, and with the push of a button, he opened a communications link to the X-Corp offices. Roberto de Costa and Sage were on the other end, though Roberto looked oddly pale under the bright lights of whatever room he was in. "Given what's happened, I want all the X-Corp offices evacuated and closed immediately. And the institute will offer refuge to any mutant looking for a safe haven. They can come here. Roberto, I hope your corporation can help with the logistics."

"You have my full support, Cyclops," Roberto said, his Brazilian accent as strong as it ever was. He sounded scared, but he was in control of it.

"And I am compiling all the data pertaining to this phenomenon," Sage added. Her voice was calm. Professional. The voice of a woman doing her job. "Once my analysis determines its cause, the X-Men can formulate a proper response."

"Do what you can, Sage," Scott said.

The Sentinels arrived later that afternoon. All of them at once, descending from the sky like a nightmare out of the days of a future long since past. It is impossible to describe what it felt like to be a mutant or a former mutant on that day, watching the Sentinels arrive at the Xavier Institute. No one who isn't a mutant would really understand. Even so, even as each of them felt it, each of them reacted differently. Scott Summers only clenched his jaw, otherwise ready for what came next. Alexander Summers narrowed his eyes, gathering his power about him. Moonstar, freshly depowered, freshly denied an irreplaceable part of her own identity, saw the Sentinels landing and wept bitterly. Beast and Rogue looked up in utter dismay. Emma Frost clenched her teeth and glared defiantly up at the descending instruments of genocide, ready to fight them to her last breath.

* * *

><p>The New World<br>by P.H. Wise  
>A BtVS, Power Girl, DCU, and Marvel Comics crossover fanfic<p>

Chapter 2: Unfinished Business, Part 1

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. I'm honestly not sure who owns Buffy the Vampire Slayer anymore, but it used to be Fran and Kaz Kuzui. This chapter contains some dialogue from 'The House of M - the Day After' and from New X-Men #37. I don't own those, either.

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><p><em>Three Days Ago<em>

For the New X-Men, the horrors of M-Day seemed far away from where they were now. They had met up at the Centennial Park in the heart of Metropolis's New Troy borough. The city gleamed all around them, all gold and silver and blue, almost a precise reversal of Gotham's dreariness. The park wasn't crowded, but they could hear and see and feel the City of Tomorrow all around them, alive in the midst of its morning commute. A few joggers made their way along the park's well maintained paths; but the New X-Men had gathered around the Superman Memorial Statue, with the Superboy statue beside it. It was a little weird being next to a statue of someone who was actually hanging out with you, but after a few minutes, the surreal feeling faded. It was beautiful, and the day was full of light, and life, and hope. It was in the air - a sense of progress that made almost anything seem possible. And no one was pointing to the mutants in terror. No one cried out at their appearance. A few curious passers-by paused and asked what super-team they were part of, but that was all.

Karen spotted the group from above, and Santo called out when she descended, "Hey Karen!"

"Hey Santo, hey everyone," Karen said.

The others spoke their greetings. A few nodded. Superboy saw her, did a double-take, and then shook his head bemusedly. "Supergirl said you were Karen's clone, but seeing it in person is a little different from hearing about it." Then he smiled. "I'm Superboy." He looked surprisingly normal. He was handsome, but that didn't do anything for her, which was probably good since besides being a guy, he was technically her alternate-universe second cousin, which would have it legal, but still a little weird. His costume was dead-simple: black shoes, blue jeans, belt, black t-shirt bearing the symbol of the house of El in red.

"Yeah," Karen said. "About the name…"

Superboy held up a hand, "I got it. Might take me a bit to get used to it, but I'll try to remember. You're Karen. She's Kara."

Santo grinned at her, then. "Superboy here is gonna take us to meet up with this group called the Teen Titans. We're gonna beat them up! Like, for no other reason than because they're the Teen Titans, and we're the New X-Men! It'll be awesome!"

"I don't think that's such a good idea," Superboy began even as Karen laughed and said, "Sounds like fun, Santo." Each hesitated. Then Superboy gestured to her, and Karen went on. "Kara, Irma and I are going to see some of Kara's friends in New York."

Noriko rolled her eyes. "We are not going to beat them up, Santo," she said.

Santo frowned. "But we're both teenaged teams! We should fight!"

"You're not still mad you never got to fight the Young Avengers, are you?" Cessily asked.

Santo scowled.

Noriko shook her head. "No beating them up, Santo. We're just going to meet some of Superboy's friends from when he was on the Teen Titans." A beat passed. "Kid Flash isn't going to be there, is he?"

Superboy didn't seem to realize that that was a problem. "What, Bart? Sure he is. Him, Cassie, and the whole gang."

Noriko scowled.

Superboy raised an eyebrow. "You got a problem with Bart?"

Noriko fake-smiled, and it was painfully obvious that she was lying when she replied, "No. Bart's a great guy. Why would I have any problem with him?"

"...Ah," Superboy said.

There was a tiny pause in the conversation, and Sooraya took the opportunity to speak. "Do you think I might meet Wonder Woman before we leave?" she asked. "I spoke with her before the end in that other world, and I wanted..." She trailed off, and only Karen and Superboy could see that she looked pensive beneath her veil. "I wanted to ask her something," she finished.

Superboy nodded. "I'll see what I can do, yeah."

Sooraya smiled. "Thank you," she said.

* * *

><p><em>Now<em>

Before the Sentry died, he had made a habit of traveling about, rescuing people, dealing with criminals, and generally providing superpowered intervention. Sometimes he crossed the whole world in an evening. Occasionally he confined himself to his native continent of North America. He had never been able to choose what to respond to and what not. It was too much pressure for him. How could he decide who would live and who would die? It was impossible. That was why he had the Centrally Located Organic Computer. CLOC could assess. CLOC could prioritize. CLOC allowed him to respond to crises without freezing up. He had often responded to those crisis brutally, but he had responded to them. Lives had been saved. There had even been a regular segment on several different nightly news programs dedicated to his daily interventions. It was subject to random interruptions whenever he had a breakdown, but it had been surprisingly popular.

Now, he was gone, and no one had elected to fill his shoes.

Tonight was different. Karen didn't know about the Sentry Watch, of course, and had no interest in filling the man's shoes, and while Irma knew, she didn't care, but when reports started coming in of two superpowered teenaged girls making their way across the east coast of the United States, saving people wherever they went, news organizations took notice.

The first story came from a fishing ship operating out of Nantucket Sound. Captain Rawlins had made two mistakes, and nature had compounded them: he'd gone out too far, he'd stayed out too long, and the Nor'easter had come in too quickly. Now, his heart beat like a hammer in his chest as they raced back to port, knowing that the storm would catch them long before they got there. Though each of his crew were afraid, each did their job with a professionalism that he admired even as they were caught by the storm. There were twelve of them all told, including himself, and they'd been working together for the past five years. The wind was howling, and an icy sleet was hammering into his ship, the waves beating against the deck like they were driven by an angry, living will. Then the waves seemed to stop, and there was a moment of almost tranquil calm. The wind still howled. The rain still came down in icy sheets. Then a great shadow passed over his boat. Dread filled him. He looked up through the window and saw the wave cresting over his ship.

It felt as though the hand of a giant had suddenly seized the fishing ship and flung headlong. His stomach lurched. The boat capsized, the glass shattered. Water started pouring into the bridge, slamming him against the back wall. In that moment, he knew that he was going to die, and then…

The world world seemed to lurch. The ship groaned, and there was a sound like buckling metal. And then the world righted itself. By the time he had recovered, he saw that the whole ship was in the air, flying towards shore. It took seconds for them to outpace the storm at the speed they were going. Five minutes later, something set them down gently in the water just outside The rest of his crew, all eleven of them, were alive and more or less unharmed.

He and the others rushed out onto the deck in time to see two teenaged girls in superhero costumes rocket up out of the water: a blonde and a brunette. They both grinned at him, and the brunette gave a thumbs up. He found himself grinning back. Then they rocketed away into the sky and were gone.

The next intervention happened in Stamford, only a few blocks away from the house that had once been a shelter to a group of villains. There'd been a car accident. An SUV had been going too fast, taken a turn too harshly, flipped, and gone into a ditch.. There was a middle-aged couple badly injured and trapped in the vehicle Paramedics were on the scene, but nobody was getting into that SUV until the jaws of life could cut through the door, and it was taking too long. Things were getting desperate when the blonde and brunette young women landed next to the vehicle.

"Can we be of assistance?" the blonde asked.

Mary Cooper, a grey-haired woman who had been working as a paramedic for thirty years, shook her head. "Not unless you can get the door off in the next ten seconds," she muttered.

The brunette promptly reached out and ripped the smashed up door clean off the vehicle as easily as picking up a fork. There was a brief wail of protesting metal, but it didn't offer any meaningful resistance to her at all. The same girl took a look at the two people in the car. "Phoenix," she said, "Can you make sure he can't move his neck?"

The blonde - Phoenix, apparently - looked at the man in the car. Her eyes glowed. "I've got him," she said.

The brunette turned to Mary. "The man's got a broken neck. I don't think he knows it yet. It looks like the, um, the spine isn't damaged, but all he'd have to do is turn his head, and the little jagged bits on either side of the, um, fracture, look like they'll cut it into it."

Mary blinked. She and her fellow paramedics had already anticipated that head injury might be a problem, but having this girl just tell her about broken bones that couldn't be seen with the naked eye was downright spooky. Even so, she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Any other injuries that you can see on him or on the female passenger?" she asked.

The brunette looked. "The woman has a broken collarbone, a couple of broken ribs, and a gash on her thigh. The man's wrist is broken and his head is bleeding, but nothing else except the neck thing."

Mary nodded. "Right. You're both going to give us a hand. Do what I say when I say it, and we'll get these people out alive."

They did, and Todd and Amanda Beckett lived.

In Camden, just outside of Philly, a Latino family's home was burning down. The wife had managed to rescue two of her sons with a strength born of adrenaline; the husband had gone back in to find their daughter, and had been trapped with her by the flames. Fire trucks were coming, but they were too far away to save the father or his daughter. Then two young women came down from the sky, seemingly unharmed by the flames. Phoenix took the daughter and flew her out of the house. The dark-haired girl did the same for the father.

So it continued down the coast. They stopped to intervene almost a hundred times as they made their way to Florida and back, intervening not to stop crime per se, but to save lives when lives were in danger. Their progress was tracked on radar - the whole journey, from start to finish. By the time they returned to the Xavier Institute, it was nearly 1:00 in the morning, and Irma was tired. Karen needed sleep, too, but she also knew that she could get around that if she wanted to. It wouldn't be good for her to do it, but she could. For her, it had been exhilarating. Freeing. Actually responding to people in need instead of trying to mind her own business felt… well, it felt good. It had been hard, doing what they had just done. But they had saved lives, often just in the nick of time, and seeing hope rekindle in the eyes of people who were sure they were going to die was simply indescribable. They paused above the clouds there at the end. Far below, the Nor'easter had reached the east coast.

There, Karen let her senses expand to their fullest extent. The motion of atoms became as obvious as the stars above them. As in the largest, so in the smallest; electrons and planets, nuclei and stars, the separation between the individual and the universal, the border between the atoms which made up living bodies and the atoms which made up the air, and the interaction between them, and the incredible complexity of each; also came the sounds of traffic on the streets, crickets and cicadas, the call of night owls, the murmur of human speech, the wind, the storm below, the radio-voice of humanity and of the Earth, the roll of thunder and the songs of distant stars. Everything was connected, and everything was significant; it went across the sea of space and within and without: Tat Tvam Asi. And in all of that vastness, in all of that glorious interconnected cosmos, knowing exactly how utterly tiny they were, they felt large.

"That," Irma said as she finally withdrew from Karen's senses, "Was amazing."

"Well, I try," Karen said, and winked.

They stayed there above the clouds for almost half an hour, leaning against each other. Neither looked their best. Immersion in saltwater and supersonic flight at Mach Ludicrous hadn't been kind to either girl's hair. But even that had its appeal, and Irma's body was warm in Karen's arms, and neither noticed the cold.

"We should land," Karen murmured.

"Uhuh," Irma replied.

Floating in the air together, Karen looked at Irma. Her hair shone in the moonlight, and her eyes were very blue. They each reached out, each drew the other in, and they kissed there in sky above the clouds, and the faintly visible wings of the fiery Phoenix raptor enfolded them.

Most people had gone to bed by the time they landed. A Sentinel challenged them, but it backed down when they identified themselves. Together, they went back to Karen's room, barely able to keep their hands off each other as they went. Fortune was with them when they arrived: Noriko was nowhere to be found. Irma locked the door. Karen's excitement grew, and if the still unfamiliar arousal of her female body was distracting, it was not nearly so distracting as Irma was. They were both mostly naked, then, hand in hand, with Irma leading Karen towards the bed, when something occurred to Karen, and she stopped short. She didn't want to, but she did. "Wait," she said.

Irma did. In spite of her own arousal, in spite of her own desire for Karen, she stopped immediately and waited. "What is it?" she asked. She paused when she saw the fear there in Karen's surface thoughts. "Oh."

Karen looked uncomfortable. She sounded it, too, though at least half of that was frustration at the idea that they would be able to go any further. "Kara warned me about this. I'm actually super-strong, um, everywhere, and I really don't want you to get hurt just because I got a, um, had a happy moment."

"You won't hurt me," Irma said. "Come here."

"But…"

"Trust me," Irma said.

Karen did. They fell into the bed together, and Irma's body was very warm, and very soft, and she felt an awful, wonderful rising need that seemed to color the whole universe. They looked into each other's eyes, and then…

And then they both fell unconscious on the bed, and neither one of them moved until morning.

When the first light of dawn came over the horizon, Karen opened her eyes, looking _very _satisfied, grinned, and said, "I had psychic snu-snu."

Irma didn't open her eyes, looking utterly relaxed. She still made a half-hearted attempt to give an impression of glaring. "Don't ever call it that again," she said.

"Why didn't you tell me we could do that?" Karen asked.

"Sex on the astral plane?" Irma asked.

"Yeah. That."

Irma smiled, still not opening her eyes. "Go back to sleep, Karen," she said.

"Can't," Karen replied. "The sun's up. Stupid sun."

* * *

><p>In Irma's room, Phoebe and Celeste woke up at the same time that Irma did in Karen's room. They gave each other long-suffering looks. Then Celeste asked, "She knows we felt all that, right?"<p>

Phoebe all but rolled her eyes. She didn't have to. It was there in the link between them. All three of them. Despite their increasing levels of individuality, their telepathic link shared between the three of them everything that any of them experienced. She did it anyways. It was good to maintain the habit of conversing and acting outside the link. "We're a telepathic hive-mind, Celeste," she said. "She knows."

"We probably shouldn't tell Karen," Celeste said.

Phoebe shook her head tiredly. "Probably not. That might make it weird."

"As weird as when Esme was in love with Xorn disguised as Magneto?" Celeste asked sleepily. It still hurt to talk about Esme, especially after Esme and Sophie's recent return as zombie-Cuckoos, and Celeste probably wouldn't have done so if she'd been more awake.

Phoebe was silent for a moment as she pushed back the fresh hurt that the mention of their dead sister had brought up. Then she said, "That was Xorn's identical twin brother," Phoebe replied. "And I thought we agreed never to talk about that again."

Celeste's next words were heavily slurred by her sleepiness. "Isn't it a little weird that Xorn was pretending to be Xorn," she yawned in mid-sentence, "pretending to be Magneto?"

"Go back to sleep, Celeste," Phoebe said.

She did.

* * *

><p>Outside, the weather was stormy. The Nor'easter had well and truly hit. The sound of the wind was a distant but omnipresent thing, rising and falling in time to the gusts. The ground was blanketed in snow, the sky was grey, and snowflakes whirled thickly through the air. Karen watched the storm in silence for a good ten minutes. She'd seen snow very briefly when she and Irma had circumnavigated the globe the other day, but seeing it gleaming off the peaks of distant mountains, or seeing a few patches of snow on the ground as you flew overhead wasn't the same thing as being in a snowstorm. She'd never seen anything like it outside of movies and pictures, and watching it made her feel just a little bit like a child, peering out in wide-eyed wonder at the wide world around her.<p>

It was only after those ten minutes had passed that she realized that Irma was awake in bed, curled up in the blankets, and watching her with a smile on her face.

"What?" Karen asked.

Irma shook her head. "Nothing," she said. The smile remained.

Five minutes later, Karen began her morning routine. She showered, brushed her teeth, gave what little body hair she had a zap with the help of her heat vision and the bathroom mirror. That was pretty much it. By the time she finished, Irma was out of bed, dressed, and regarding her with a raised eyebrow.

"That's it?" she asked.

"What's it?" Karen asked.

"That's really all you do to get ready for the day? No foundation, nothing with your lashes, no eyeliner, no lipstick, you just shower, brush your teeth, get rid of any unwanted body hair with your heat vision, and you're done?"

Not really sure what Irma was driving at, Karen shrugged. "Uh. Yeah."

"And you look like _that_ afterwards?" Irma asked.

Karen glanced at herself in the mirror, then back at Irma. She couldn't see anything wrong with her appearance, so she shrugged again. "Yeah."

Irma sighed. "Bloody Kryptonians," she said, in a flawless imitation of her mother's faux-Received Pronunciation accent. She stalked off back to her own room to get ready for the day, muttering something about winning genetic lotteries and unfairness.

Not really sure what to make of that, Karen went and got dressed. Today's outfit was simple: sports bra, a black Superman t-shirt, underwear, blue-jeans with a belt, and a pair of black shoes. And while, yes, she was technically wearing Superboy's costume, but that didn't occur to her until later in the day.

Dawn had been given the room across the hall from Karen's. It was on the second floor of the girls' dorm. It hadn't been hard to find her a room. Most of the rooms in the dorms were empty, now. Most of the rooms in the dorms were… hey. Wait a minute. Karen frowned as she looked out the window towards the refugee camp. A refugee camp with no small number of school age children. Right. She should bring that up.

First things first, though. She knocked on the door to Dawn's room. The only response was a faint groan. She let herself notice the x-ray band of visible light, and saw that Dawn was still asleep. Karen let her sleep. She went downstairs and through the enclosed walkway that connected the three story girls' dormitory to the main building to get some breakfast in the cafeteria. It was more crowded than usual. Which was to say, it was actually crowded, and that was weird, and with unfamiliar faces. It took Karen a second to realize that the newcomers were all from the refugee area of the campus. There were more of them in the atrium, and in a few of the other rooms she could see through the walls from here.

She sat down at a table with a group of unfamiliar people, and was halfway through her breakfast when a squirrel jumped up onto the table, right into the middle of her plate, stood up on its hind legs, and started chittering angrily at her.

Karen let out a shriek of surprise and fell out of her seat, unreasoning terror rising in her for all of a split second. Then she stopped and looked at the creature. "Okay, since when am I afraid of squirrels?" she asked as she stood up.

The squirrel continued to chitter at her angrily, but that moment of inexplicable terror was gone. Karen made a shooing gesture. "Go. Get out of here."

The squirrel chittered at her some more, then kicked over her glass of orange juice and dashed away.

The eyes of those close enough to notice what had just happened all fell on Karen, and she flushed with both anger and embarrassment. "I hate squirrels," she muttered.

Afterwards, when she was on her way back to the girls' dorm to see if Dawn was awake, a telepathic voice intruded into her thoughts. Professor Xavier's voice. '_Ms. Zor-L,_' he said. '_I would like to meet with you in my office as soon as possible._'

Right. Xavier. Right.

It was a space designed to accommodate a wheelchair. Everything about how it was arranged made that obvious. The passages were wider than they would otherwise need to be. Too much room between it all. What normal chairs had been brought in seemed oddly out of place compared to the rest. Bookshelves filled with many a volume of scientific journals plus an assortment of English, Greek, and Roman literature lined one wall. Professor Xavier sat behind a real wooden desk. A maroon carpet lay in front of it, patterned with blue and gold over a wood floor. A fireplace stood against the wall opposite the bookshelves, and a fire burned cheerily within it. The third wall - the outer wall - followed the curve of the building, and was lined with windows that allowed the room to be filled with natural light. There wasn't much natural light to be found at the moment, though. Mostly it looked snowy.

Xavier stood when Karen entered the room. "Hello, Ms. Zor-L," he said.

Karen felt a little nervous being here. She'd heard a lot about the professor. Some of the students were certain that he was an asshole, but most of them talked about him like he was Gandhi, or Doctor King or something. How do you have a conversation with Mutant Gandhi, anyways? "Um. Hi," she said awkwardly.

If Professor Xavier heard her thoughts, he didn't say so. "My name is Charles Xavier," he said, "And given that it was my decision that brought you here, I thought it appropriate that we should meet. Ours is not the most timely meeting, I admit. I was busy with other matters when you arrived here, and by the time I was able to return to the school, still other priorities interfered. But here we are at last." He held out a hand.

Karen shook the man's hand, taking care not to squeeze too hard. "Nice to meet you, um, Professor," Karen said.

The Professor gestured to one of the two chairs in front of his desk, "Please, sit."

She did, and he took a seat soon after. "Um," Karen started, "You said you're the reason I'm here?"

"Indeed," Xavier said. "You were discussed by the same group which met yesterday to decide what to do about Ms. Summers."

Karen wasn't really sure how to react to that. "I see." She paused. "Dawn I can understand, I guess, but I have a hard time seeing how one more random person falling out of the sky in the middle of M-Day was worth your time."

"In most cases," Xavier said, "You would be correct. But you didn't crashland just anywhere. You fell from the sky directly in front of the Baxter building. The Fantastic Four took you in. Reed saw the potential power inside your cells, waiting for sunlight to make you the equal of Thor or Sentry. And after the Hulk's rampages, and after Wanda…" he paused, his eyes growing distant and sad. "They didn't want to take the chance."

"Why did you agree to teach me?"

Xavier looked Karen in the eye, his expression a sad one, and when he spoke, it had the sound of a sentence often upon his lips: "People often fear what they do not understand," he said.

But what did he mean by… Oh. Right. "Yeah," Karen said. "I guess that's true."

"Tell me," Xavier said, "How have you found your time here?"

Karen smiled. "It's been good. I have friends here. And people I care about. I wasn't sure about this place at first, but… it has a way of growing on you."

"I understand you have come into conflict with the staff?"

"Only when they're wrong," Karen said.

"Are they often wrong?" Xavier asked gently.

"About some things," Karen said. "I mean, I know I'm still new to this superpowers thing, but I know what I'm doing now, and I'm not going to sit here and do nothing when people need my help." She let out a breath. "Mostly it's Scott and Emma. Sometimes the others. Logan's OK, though."

"Is he?" Professor Xavier mused. Something seemed to amuse him about that statement. "Ms. Zor-L, I want you to understand that the teachers at this school really are doing their best. None of them is perfect, but each of them is worthwhile, as you may discover if you give them the chance. And they are all on your side. On all of the students' side. Many of them were students themselves, once."

Karen blinked. "Huh. I could buy maybe Ms. Braddock or Kitty, but I have a hard time imagining Cyclops as a student here."

Xavier laughed. "Scott Summers was once one of my finest pupils." He produced an old photograph from his desk drawer. A group of five students stood side by side, all in blue and yellow spandex, all of them smiling with a younger Professor Xavier in a wheelchair. There were four boys in the photo, and she recognized the teenaged Scott immediately thanks to visor, which looked even goofier than the one he had today. That other guy, what's his name, ice something, he was there too. Two boys she didn't recognize: one was tall and thin with magnificent angelic wings coming out from his shoulders, and the other was a little stocky in his build but still visibly athletic and muscular. The fifth was a beautiful teenaged girl with red hair.

"Wow," Karen said, staring at photo. "Scott Summers. Student. That is just bizarre." She pointed to the two boys she didn't recognize. "Who are they?"

"Those would be Angel and Beast."

Karen blinked. "That's _Beast?_" she asked.

"He's gone through a few changes since then," Xavier said mildly.

"And the understatement of the year award goes to…" Karen said. She pointed to the girl in the photo, then. "Who's she?"

Xavier smiled sadly "That," he said, "Is Jean Grey. My finest student."

Karen froze. Jean Grey. "Isn't she…" she started to ask, but trailed off before she could finish the sentence..

"Yes," Xavier said.

The Phoenix. The thing that scares the crap out of the X-Men every time it's mentioned. The thing that Irma and her sisters each had a fragment of inside of them. That thought bothered her. It bothered her a lot.

"Professor, do you mind if I ask you something?" Karen hesitated. "Besides the question I just asked."

Xavier nodded, putting the photo back into his desk drawer. "Go ahead."

"How much danger are the Cuckoos in with fragments of the Phoenix inside them?"

For all of a split second, Professor Xavier looked startled. Then he composed himself, thought about it, and said, "In all the time that the Phoenix has taken mutant hosts, only one person has ever managed to wield it safely. To be its host, and fully bonded with the entity, without endangering others."

"Jean Grey?" Karen asked.

Xavier shook his head. "Her daughter: Rachel. The One True Phoenix. Perhaps if the Cuckoos possess only a fragment of the Phoenix, they may be able to wield it safely. I pray that it is so."

Karen didn't press any further on the subject. It was after another ten minutes of talking that Professor Xavier finally looked up at the clock. "Well, it's getting towards the start of classes," he said. "We will have to end our conversation here. But should you ever wish to speak with me, my office is always open."

Karen smiled. "Thanks, Professor. I'll remember that."

* * *

><p>So far so good. Kyle Rayner had met with his trainee the previous day. They'd done the standard training exercises, with Kyle doing his best to channel Kilowog, and only refraining from calling the kid 'Poozer' by sheer force of will, which, admittedly, he had in spades. The kid was all right. His name was David. Called himself Prodigy. Used to be a meta. Lost his powers somehow. Pressed on. He'd had a hard life since his powers first manifested. All the metahumans of this world seemed to have that in common. Kyle wasn't really sure what to make of that. It had been that way during the Krona incident, too. When the Wally West had shown up on Earth 616 at the start of that, the first thing he'd done was try to save a mutant from an angry mob. … and promptly gotten thrashed by said angry mob. Kyle still wasn't sure how that had worked.<p>

Adding to the general weirdness of the place and this whole situation was the fact that the kid had Hal Jordan's ring. Or a copy of it so perfect that even his own ring's sensors couldn't tell the difference. Hal hadn't lost his ring, though: That had been the first thing he'd checked.

The kid was in school at the moment, which gave him some free time. It was snowing pretty heavily, but that wasn't an obstacle to a Green Lantern. And neither Wanda, Pietro, nor Clint had returned his call. Maybe they were busy, but that didn't mean he couldn't drop by the Avengers mansion to check in on them. And he'd planned on having a little chat with the Avengers about the metahuman internment camp that had sprung up at the Xavier institute, anyways.

The trip didn't take long, and though his ring would have automatically showed him a route that didn't interfere with the flight plans of any aircraft, it hardly needed to: most air traffic in the region was grounded because of the storm. He didn't feel the cold, and the wind found no purchase on him. 721 Fifth Avenue wasn't hard to find.

The Avengers mansion was a three story townhouse originally built in the '30s. It was distinctive. Iconic, even. Kyle had always liked the look of it. … It lay in ruins.

With wide eyes and a sick feeling in his stomach, Kyle Rayner landed in the rapidly deepening snow and scanned the remains of the mansion. Whatever had happened here, it had happened a while ago. Months at the very least. That didn't help that sick feeling of dread. Presently, he realized that he had landed in the mansion's garden. There were snow-shrouded statues all around him. A moment's thought sent the snow tumbling from them in a flare of green light, and each of the statues of the fallen Avengers stood revealed, each inscribed with a plaque bearing the name of the dead hero.

There were more of them than he remembered.

Kyle glanced at the statues, his ring identifying them in green text sent directly to his visual cortex.

Mockingbird  
>Captain Mar-vell<br>Demolition Man  
>Lifecry<br>Jack of Hearts  
>Ant Man<br>The Swordsman  
>Dr. Druid<br>Thunderstrike  
>Yellowjacket<br>Masque  
>Vision<br>Hawkeye

His heart sank when he caught sight of Hawkeye's statue. So. Clint was dead. He didn't want to look any further. Didn't want to see if Wanda and Pietro's statues were here, too.

Kyle Rayner turned away.

He might have left, then, but his ring's sensors alerted him that a suit of powered armor was approaching his location. He waited.

Iron Man landed next to him five minutes later.

* * *

><p>Dawn was awake and out of her room by the time Karen finally made it back to the girls' dorm. They met up at the dorm entrance, with Dawn on her way out to go to her first day of classes.<p>

"Hey Dawn," Karen called. "You get settled in all right?"

Dawn shot her an annoyed look. "I guess. I waited up for you, you know."

Karen felt a little uncomfortable hearing that. "Right," she said. "Sorry."

Dawn sighed dramatically. "It's all right. I mean, it's not like it's the first time a Xander has blown me off to spend time with his girlfriend."

OK, now Karen felt both uncomfortable and guilty. And mad. "Excuse me?" she asked.

"It's nothing," Dawn said. "I'll see you after classes, Karen. Okay?"

"Yeah," Karen said, her tone a little flat, "See you then." They both went their separate ways.

Today was a switch day, and classes went in reverse order. It happened every other day, and you kind of got used to it after a while. Karen sat down in her math class, and took note of the unfamiliar faces: six kids she'd never seen before. She sat down at her chair. Laurie was already there, though except for the two of them and the six new kids, nobody else had arrived yet.

"What did you think of the homework?" Laurie asked.

Karen blinked, startled out of the sour mood Dawn had put her in. Oh, right. She'd completely forgotten to do her homework. Too late now, though: she only had ten minutes before class started, and that was way too little time to do it in.

Wasn't it?

Karen glanced down at her backpack looking thoughtful. Then both her thoughts and her physical speed kicked into overdrive. In less than a second, she had her math book, a pad of paper, and a pencil out on the desk. She began reading. Thirty seconds later, she had finished all of her math homework for the rest of the week. And she understood it! With an increasingly manic grin, she kept going, blazing through the book's chapters one by one, the sound of pages flipping and furious scribbling soon becoming the only sound in the classroom. She had to sharpen her pencil a few times, and replace it entirely a few times. By the time Scott Summers walked in to start class ten minutes later, she had just finished the last page of her math book and had used every sheet of paper she'd had in her binder.

"What's going on here?" Scott asked.

Karen looked up with that manic grin. "I can do math," she said.

"I'm pretty sure that's cheating," Laurie said.

* * *

><p>"Green Lantern," Iron Man said.<p>

Kyle looked up. "Iron Man," he said. "Been a while."

"Wanda and Pietro aren't here," Iron Man said.

Iron Man had listened to the private messages that he'd sent, then. Didn't surprise him. During the Krona incident, when both the Justice League and the Avengers had been forced to work together in close proximity for an extended period to save both of their worlds, Iron Man had come off as more than a little paranoid. Maybe not as bad as Batman, but pretty bad. "What happened?" Kyle asked.

Iron Man looked away, his dark mood apparent even through his armor, even without his face or eyes visible.

Kyle asked the question again, his tone far less harsh: "What happened?"

"A bad day," Iron Man said quietly.

Kyle let out an audible breath. Bad day. The Blackest Night came to his thoughts. The dead rising to feed upon the living. Nekron's Black Lanterns and their quest to scour all life and every single spark of the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum from the universe. Before all of that, the Final Crisis. Darkseid unleashing the Anti-Life Equation upon Earth. The distant echo of broken humans chanting, '_Anti-Life Justifies My Hate_,' as the 52 worlds collapsed around them. "I've had a few of those," he said.

Iron Man's helmet slid open, revealing his face - Tony Stark's face - beneath. He looked exhausted. His eyes were bloodshot, there were dark circles under his eyes. "Wanda lost it," Tony said. "Just completely lost it. We lost Scott. We lost Vision. We lost Clint. Almost lost the whole world. Nobody's seen her since."

Kyle's heart sank. "Pietro?" he asked.

Tony shook his head. "He didn't take it well. It didn't help that the majority of mutants all lost their powers not long afterwards. He's not the man you knew."

"Gone villain?" Kyle asked.

"He tried to help his sister. Made a lot of bad choices. Made a lot of enemies. Lost his powers. He didn't take it well. He ran off, started living on the streets. Tried to kill himself. Didn't take." Tony looking completely awful was starting to make a little more sense. "His wife and Spider-Man stopped him. Nobody's seen him since."

Kyle stared at Tony in utter disbelief. "... Pietro lost his powers and wound up living on the streets, and you _let _him? Nobody tried to stop him? To help him? What the hell, Tony?"

Tony smiled ruefully. "Too late to do anything about it now," he said.

Kyle's jaw dropped open slightly. What the hell was this? First the mutant internment camp, now this? What the hell was going on here? "Like hell it is,"he said. "Where do I find his wife?"

"Don't you have a trainee you're working with at Xavier's? Do you really have time to be running around after Pietro?"

Kyle's eyes narrowed. "I don't know, Tony. Do people normally have time for their friends when they're in trouble?"

Tony didn't say anything for a long moment. Then, with a sigh, he said, "Crystalia's with her people. Blue Area of the Moon. Luther Crater. You know where it is?"

Kyle knew where the crater was. Without another word, he lifted into the air and flew away.

On ground, Tony Stark looked upon the statues of dead Avengers, looking almost as miserable as he felt. Then he produced a flask of whiskey from a compartment on his belt, mentally added Spider-Woman and the Sentry to the list, brought the flask to his lips, and drank.

* * *

><p>When she walked out of her last class for the day, Karen's headache was still as bad as ever, and she felt a strange itching between her shoulder blades. It was like the feeling she'd used to get in Sunnydale in the years before she'd met Buffy, on the rare occasions that she'd gone out late at night. It was the feeling you get when it's dark, and you're alone, and there's a stir in the air, like something is out there in the dark that never quite seems to materialize. It wasn't fear exactly: more like a profound unease.<p>

Detention at lunch with Ms. Frost had been unpleasant: she'd been assigned to clear all the snow from the basketball court that split open to allow the Blackbirds to launch from the underground hanger. While it was still snowing. In the middle of the storm. She'd also been forbidden to use either her heat vision or her super-speed while doing it. On the plus side, she hadn't really been bothered by the cold. She'd felt it, sure; she had been aware of the sensation of cold. The cold just didn't bother her, or make her shiver, or feel uncomfortable.

Because Karen had spent her lunch period clearing the hanger doors/basket ball court of snow and ice, she hadn't really had a chance to see just how many new students there were before now. It was weirdly crowded in the halls. There was a press of new faces. Cyclops had explained the situation to them: that they had been planning to open the school to the school-age children in the refugee camp for a while now, and had just been figuring out the logistics. They'd all been allowed to move into the dorms as well, which explained why things were getting so crowded, but it was still weird seeing so many people here. It occurred to Karen that the school must have been a little like this before M-Day, and that her perspective was skewed, but that didn't make it seem any less odd. Most of the new kids avoided the Xavier students, and a few got really nervous when they saw Karen. Whispers followed her through the halls, though most of the new kids probably thought she couldn't hear them. Turned out, people had actually seen the news reports about what Divine had done, and her own interview with Piers Morgan back when she and Kara had been sharing a body.

"_Is that her?"  
><em>"_That's her, isn't it?"  
><em>"_Why are they letting a murderer go to school here?"  
><em>"_Holy God but check out the boobs on that chick!"  
><em>"_Those can't be real."  
><em>"_I hear she killed Speedball."  
><em>"_I hear she killed Namorita."  
><em>"_I hear Squirrel-Girl found out where she is, and she's on her way with an army of squirrels to take revenge!" _

That last one actually made her shudder, though she couldn't say why. What kind of name was Squirrel-Girl, anyways? ... No. Probably just another tall tale, like Santo's stories about the legendary Duck Man of Cleveland. Even accounting for all the whispers and the surreptitious glances her way when they thought she wasn't looking, she still felt like she was being followed. A quiet tension had begun to flow through her, and she had to force herself not to instinctively check over her shoulder every couple of seconds.

She saw Irma and Dawn coming from opposite directions before they saw her. She didn't particularly want to deal with Dawn just now, but she grit her teeth and bore it. The storm was still strong outside, which added to the sense of claustrophobia. Some people were going outside, but they were going out in heavy winter clothing, and they were generally only going out to get to one of the new buildings.

"Hey Karen," Irma called simultaneously with Dawn's, "Hey Xander."

Karen and Irma exchanged a quick hug. There was no production, no sweeping into each other's arms, just a hug, but it said a lot. People who Karen was comfortable hugging was a very, very short list. It consisted of Kara, Buffy, Willow, Irma, and that was it. Even on its best days, the household of Anthony and Jessica Harris had never been physically affectionate. Divine had had even less to work with, literally never having been embraced by anyone in her entire life until, in their shared mindscape, Xander had taken her into his embrace and accepted all that she was, and holy crap but that memory was weird from Divine's perspective. "Hey," Karen said. Then she glanced over her shoulder Dawn. "I told you, it's Karen now."

Dawn had a sour expression on her face, but she nodded. "Right. Sorry."

* * *

><p>Mutant Town. They called it Mutant Town. It had other names. District X. The Middle East Side. Given that it was a bit lacking in mutants these days, that last one was growing in popularity. As he set down on the sidewalk, Kyle glanced quickly about. It was an old habit: his ring's sensors gave him an advanced situational awareness that the human eyeball could never hope to match, but there had been things that could hide from his ring in the past. They were a useful tool, but relying on them to the exclusion of all else seemed like a great way to get killed.<p>

He should have expected that this wouldn't be as simple as just going to the moon and asking where Pietro was. The Inhumans had been less than enthusiastic when he told them why he had come and who he was looking for. Turned out, Pietro was under a sentence of death should he ever return to Attilan - the Inhuman city. Last time he'd been there, he had killed a man and damaged something that the Inhumans referred to as 'the Terrigen crystals,' which imbued the Nonhumans with superpowers, were the basis for their society. In the end, about the only clue that he turned up was that Pietro had stayed in an apartment in Mutant Town for a while after he'd damaged the crystals and fled from Attilan.

That was all. 'An apartment in Mutant Town.' It hadn't taken him long to find the place: he'd had his ring search local databases for Mutant Town and any reports of people matching Pietro's description. There hadn't been much in the way of the latter, but Mutant Town had come up, and here he was.

Without any other leads, it was time to consult with professionals.

There was a girl - just a kid, really - with blonde hair and blue eyes sitting on the steps of the five story brownstone building he'd come to, reading _Atlas Shrugged _in the snow. She looked bored, and Kyle didn't blame her. He'd never liked Ayn Rand's books, either. She had a dark blue skirt, her long-sleeved shirt was a washed out sort of pale, sky blue, and she had orange and black leggings on underneath it. She'd thrown a thick orange coat over it all the same shade as her leggings. Her ears and cheeks were a little red with the cold. When she saw him, she looked startled, but she tried to pass it off as a yawn. She was pretty good at it; it almost worked. "Who are you supposed to be?"

"Green Lantern 2814," he replied easily. "Name's Kyle. You?"

She didn't answer, and after a second of waiting to see if she would, Kyle Rayner, in his full Green Lantern uniform complete with mask, shrugged and walked into X-Factor Investigations. It was a five story brownstone building, and the office was on the top floor. When he came in, he saw a stunningly beautiful dark-skinned woman lounging in an office chair. She stretched a bit when he came in and sat up. "Can I help you?" she asked with a slight accent that he couldn't place. Whoever she was, she seemed not at all taken aback by the sight of a masked man in a green and black costume walking in off the street.

Kyle nodded. "I'd like to hire X-Factor Investigations," he said.

The woman arched an eyebrow. "To what end?" she asked.

"I need to find Pietro Maximoff."

The woman nodded. "We charge $100 dollars an hour plus expenses. A retainer is customary. You'll need to provide as much…"

The door to the back stairs opened, and a trio of men, one of them ridiculously tall and muscular - came into the room. One of the men - a normal enough looking guy dressed all in green and black - directed an inquiring look at the woman Kyle was talking to. "Kyle here is looking to hire our services," the woman said.

"Huh," the man said. "What does he need?"

"Like I was just telling your co-worker," Kyle said, "I need to find Pietro…"

Pietro walked through the office's front door. He looked like hell: worse than Tony, if that was possible. Completely exhausted. Half-starved and dirty. His clothes were in tatters. And worst of all, that hopeful light in his eyes had gone out, replaced by a cold gleam that Kyle didn't like the look of one bit.

"...Maximoff," Kyle finished.

"Damn," the woman he'd been speaking to muttered.

* * *

><p>The next day was fairly unremarkable by the standards of the X-Men. Which is to say, it involved nothing more remarkable than most of the original so-called '198' conspiring with people from outside the compound whom Karen had never heard of who were apparently named 'Shatterstar' and 'Domino' to make a jailbreak. There were explosions, a couple of Sentinels got struck by lightning, a mutant named Caliban had a minor freakout, and the whole group had flown off in a great big VTOL-equipped transport jet. The new General in charge of the compound had a fit, and Cyclops, Beast, Angel, and that ice whatever his name was apparently decided that dressing up all in black leather and driving off in a special X-Men 'stealth humvee' just before dawn was the way to solve this problem.<p>

Most of the students didn't actually notice, explosions and battles having become so commonplace to them that unless they were put in danger directly, they just filtered it out. Karen had only noticed it because she'd woken up with a nasty headache, and the sound of the explosions had been less than soothing to it. Meanwhile, the Nor'easter kept right on pouring down snow on the whole affair at a furious rate. On the plus side, the fact that there were mutants running around apparently entirely unashamed of code names like 'Shatterstar' made Karen feel a whole lot better about the various ideas she and Irma had discussed for her own new code name. Speaking of which, reports of Karen and Irma's little journey down to Florida and back had showed up in the morning paper, and had started getting play on the evening news programs.

… and the Daily Bugle was calling her "Supergirl."

It had started with a witness at one of the scenes they'd intervened at. "It was crazy!" the man said, his eyes wide as he seemed to relive the moment. "It was like, like watchin' a movie or something. These giant sized cyborg crabs just started swarming into the concert hall! I saw this one guy just standing there when they came at him, just filming them on his cell phone. They snipped off his feet, just, snip snip, no more feet, and he falls and starts screaming, and then he stops, and then they're closing in on everyone else, and people are panicking, and all of a sudden these girls come flying in! That Phoenix chick - the other girl calls her Phoenix - she starts getting people out while the brunette chick just starts going to down on the cyber-crabs like, I dunno, like some kind of super-girl or something."

Naturally, the Bugle had gone with an article on SUPERGIRL AND PHOENIX. A couple of people had gotten some pretty good cell phone shots of the two of them, Irma in her Dark Phoenix costume, Karen in the black and gold of the New X-Men. It had even pushed Jonah Jameson's angry rant about Spider-Man to the back page.

So, unless she wanted to be branded forever as Supergirl, which would make things confusing if she ever went back to Kara's world, she really, really needed to pick a new code name. … Or just stick with Nightwing. That was an option, too.

The day after that, things got squirrelly.

It started with heightened security, even above the standards of the Office of National Emergency. More guards, and now equipped with heavier weapons, including some that looked like no variety of projectile weapon that Karen had ever seen. People weren't being let out of the compound at all anymore without an escort. Not that many wanted to leave the compound in this weather, but still.

Then a pair of students tried to sneak out through the tunnel that Noriko and Cessily had used, once upon a time. They were caught and thrown into the stockade, or at least that was the rumor. Which led to where Karen was now: with the whole rest of the school, such as it was, in the Auditorium, listening to some square-jawed military man go on and on about the new rules. She tuned most of it out. Her headache helped her with that. It was worse than yesterday: a near constant throbbing behind her temples that left her functional but pretty miserable. New rules. No leaving without permission, no leaving without an escort, no one was allowed to fly more than a hundred feet above the school, on and on and on. Her friends seemed equally unimpressed, and Santo apparently hadn't even bothered to go to the assembly. For that matter, neither had Dawn, Blindfold, or a group of the younger kids.

After nearly half an hour of discussion of the rules, the door to the auditorium opened, and the soldier on stage finally brought things to a close. "... Excellent. Now I'm going to turn things over to the man in charge." The soldier on stage glanced to the door. "General?" he asked.

A man dressed all in military fatigues strode purposefully in through the door. He was extraordinarily fit, but it wasn't bodybuilderesque. It wasn't showy. It was the sort of build a man had who fought in life or death conflicts for a living. His grey hair was buzz-cut, and his equally grey cop-mustache was immaculately groomed. Every motion the man made was precise and deliberate, and as he walked to stand at the podium, he surveyed the gathered mutants with a disdainful eye. Then he stepped up in front of the podium, allowing the audio system to transmit his voice throughout the room.

"I'll keep this short, because I don't have time to waste babying anyone," he said. His voice was gruff. The voice of a battle-hardened veteran. "My name is General Thaddeus Ross. And the days of my overly lenient predecessor are over. From now, you are all going to do as you're told. When I say jump, you ask, 'how high?' When I tell you to kiss my ass, you will ask, 'which cheek?' And the first thing you sad sacks of shit need to get through your little mutie minds is that the military is done making exceptions for you just because you're students at this precious 'Institute for Higher Learning.' I am a great believer in equality. Oh yes. From now on, you are all equally worthless. From now on, you will be treated exactly like every other worthless refugee on this property. You will have the same privileges, the same obligations, and the same limitations. In turn, I will do my duty and keep you safe from the big bad world and all the mutie-hating sons of bitches that want you dead. Disobey, and you will be subject to chastisement with extreme prejudice. Any questions?"

The teachers present had begun to grimace the moment he'd started speaking. Betsy looked pained. Logan snarled, allowing his claws to extend and then sheath themselves over and over. Kitty had an expression on her face that could only be described as, 'are you kidding me?' The students were thoroughly cowed: almost every student present stared at the man in open-mouthed shock, but were too terrified to say anything.

Except Karen.

Karen clenched her fist. Her head throbbed. The headache was getting worse, but that wasn't going to stop her. She could feel the pressure to stay seated, to say nothing, like a palpable force trying to keep her in her seat. One thing drove her on: this was wrong. Gathering the mutants up like this, keeping them against their wills, punishments for people who left without authorization? It was wrong. The others seated around her - Irma, Surge, Hellion, Mercury, and X-23 - seemed to feel it, too, each of them shifting uncomfortably in their seats. She stood up anyways. "That's enough," she said. Her voice thundered through the hall, made unnaturally loud by her superhuman vocal chords combined with an equally superhuman lung capacity. Every single person in the auditorium turned to look at her.

General Thaddeus Ross turned to look at her, and his attention made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Something about that man was wrong. "What was that?" he asked, his voice low and dangerous.

Irma squeezed Karen's hand from her seat next to her. "Karen," she whispered, "What are you doing?"

Karen looked Irma in the eye, her lips pursed into a very slight smirk. "I thought I'd try defying gravity," she said.

Irma let out a breath. "You know how that ends."

The New X-Men exchanged looks.

"Yeah," Karen said. She looked at the others. "You with me?" she asked.

Surge spoke for all of them. She nodded. "We're with you, Karen."

Karen looked at Irma, next. She didn't say anything, just looked.

Irma smiled fiercely. "I'm with you."

Irma, Surge, Dust, Rockslide, Hellion, Mercury, and X-23 all stood up beside and around Karen. Phoebe and Celeste were next, and their footsteps were loud in the otherwise silent auditorium as they walked to stand by Irma's side. A moment later, the New Two joined the group: they went to the opposite side of Karen from the Three-in-One. Then Laurie. Then Josh.

"She said, 'that's enough,'" Surge said.

General Ross's eyes narrowed, and Karen saw… something. A glow around the man that hadn't been there before, or if it had it had been so faint that she hadn't noticed it. It wasn't a color she'd ever seen before she'd become a Kryptonian, though she was pretty sure she'd seen it in the night sky. Nobody else seemed to see it, though, and some faint glow wasn't going to stop her now.

"I think I've put up with this for long enough," Karen said, her voice reaching every seat in the auditorium. "I know this started with an offer of sanctuary from the X-Men to any mutants that needed it, but this is something else. Keeping us here like this, turning this place into a god damned internment camp is wrong, and it's going to stop right now."

The General sneered. "I know all about you, Divine. Or Nightwing if you want." He snorted. "Supergirl. Karen." That last was spoken with particular contempt. "Whatever the hell you want to call yourself, it makes no difference. You don't speak for these mutants. You aren't one of them. And you don't give orders to me."

Karen looked the man in the eye, ignoring the headache even as it spiked again. "I'm giving you two days to get your army off of Professor Xavier's lawn," she said.

The weird glow around him grew brighter still, though still nobody appeared to see it except her. A vein on the man's forehead throbbed in time to his pulse, and tiny wisps of smoke seemed to rise from the podium for all of a split second before General Ross took a breath, and the glow receded. "Or else what?"

"Or else I'm kicking you out," Karen said, with all of her friends behind her.

"I'm not some two-bit preacher you can push around," General Ross told her, "and my boys and girls aren't half-wit United Nations S.H.I.E.L.D. agents pretending to be soldiers. These are the best of the best from every branch of the United States military! We are trained, ready, and able to take on any threat: human, mutant, or alien. You take us on, you're declaring war against the government of the United States of America. Which is why you're not going to do a goddamn thing. You might make a big protest about it, but that's all. You don't have the guts to do what it would really take to stop me from carrying out my mission."

"You sure about that?" Karen asked, her tone dangerous.

The General laughed. "We'll see in two days, won't we? But if you're ready to fight, you'd better be ready to kill. Because if you're not going to kill, then you're going to lose." He pulled a stogie out of his shirt pocket, lit it, and stuck it between his teeth. "I think we're done here," he said. Then he walked out the way he'd come, trailing puffs of smoke in his wake, and his underlings followed after.

Then the door swung shut behind them, and everyone in the auditorium started talking at once.

It was only afterwards, nearly an hour later, when Karen heard the voice of Emma Frost in her head, saying, '_My office. __**NOW**__.'_

* * *

><p>They had met Superboy's friends on the island of Themyscira. The beauty of that place was almost alive. When Noriko looked upon the green fields outside of the capital city of the Amazons, she realized that she had never before looked upon true green until that moment. It was like that with everything, there. <em>That <em>was what a field looked like. _That_ was a waterfall. The ocean was warm and blue and inviting, and so clear that you could see all the way to the bottom. Walking through the city felt like being in Mount Olympus itself, and if the Amazons were less divine than Athena and her kin, it was not for lack of merit.

There were very few men on the island, and only one was considered a resident thereof; he was a child brought to the Amazons by the Nereides. They brought lost children, usually those who had fallen overboard at sea, to the island from time to time to be tutored spiritually in Amazonian ideals before being mystically returned to their families. Visiting was permitted, of course, as part of the Amazonian mission to the World of Man, though few actually came.

They spent the night, there, and Sooraya separated from the group early, and spent many hours walking and talking with Wonder Woman in and about the city.

Superboy's friends were interesting. Well, the ones that weren't Kid Flash were interesting. They were all a little older than the New X-Men, maybe a year or two on average. There was a blonde girl named Cassie Sandsmark who couldn't have been more than 18 who somehow made a red long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans look like royal finery. … Noriko was a little jealous, to be honest. A green-skinned boy named Gar who Nori might have been interested in if she hadn't been dating David. He went by Beast Boy a lot of the time. A dark haired girl dressed all in flowing golden robes named Kiran. Her code name was Solstice. Kid Flash. … Ugh. Well, she couldn't have everything.

They'd been talking for a while when Cassie frowned thoughtfully and asked, "So why are you called X-Men?"

The mutants exchanged glances. After a moment, Noriko spoke for the rest of them, "The man who founded our organization, Professor Charles Xavier, had a dream that one day, mutants and humans could live together in harmony and in peace. But he also knew that mutants would need to be trained in the use of their powers to not be a danger to humanity, and to be an example of heroism to a world that fears…"

"Sorry," Beast Boy said, interrupting Noriko, "What's a mutant?"

Noriko blinked, and she and every other New X-Man seemed taken aback. "A, a mutant is what we call someone who's got the X-Gene in their genetic makeup - that's the gene sequence responsible for superpowers most of the time. We're basically people born with the potential for superhuman powers."

"Oh," Beast Boy said. "We call that 'metahuman.' I'm one of those. So are Kid Flash and Solstice."

"Really?" David asked.

"Really really," Beast Boy said.

Noriko started to continue her story only to be interrupted again, this time by Kid Flash. "Why would the world fear you?"

Another round of exchanged glances. "Humans often fear what they do not understand," Cessily said. "It's only natural that they'd be completely terrified of us. Especially when some of us look like this." She gestured to herself and to Santo. "It's why we're supposed to be good examples to the world, to show them that we're not all bad guys."

Now it was the Teen Titans' turn to look baffled. "Aren't you guys heroes?" Cassie asked.

"Uh," Cessily said, "Yeah."

"Then why would anyone be afraid of you?" Cassie pressed. "I could understand a small minority, like maybe Batman and a few other paranoid nutjobs, but if you're doing your job, helping people, and inspiring others with your example…" She trailed off. "I mean, come on. The way you talk about it, you'd think there were huge organized anti-metahuman hate-groups running around or something."

Noriko grimaced. "They call themselves the Friends of Humanity."

Cassie and the other Teen Titans looked stunned. "No way," Beast Boy said.

"Way," Santo replied.

* * *

><p><em>Earth 616, Now<em>

Emma was waiting for her when she walked into the office. She'd had time to sit down at her desk. The room was dimly lit, but that wasn't an issue for Kryptonian senses. Emma face was cast in shadow. "Ms. Zor-L," she said. "We find ourselves here. Again. It seems you failed to understand me the last time we spoke. And you've managed to associate my daughter with Jean Grey, of all people, in the eyes of the public at large. I'll have to think of a suitable way to thank you for that."

"You're right," Karen said. "I don't understand. Why do you put up with this? Why do you let them do this to you?"

Emma voice was as cold as winter's heart, and no hint of emotion showed itself on her face as she spoke, looking Karen directly in the eye. "They. Hate. Us." she said. "They will never stop hating us. The only thing keeping what is left of the mutant race alive is humanity's desire to see itself as fundamentally good. If we provoke them, they will kill us all, and they will see themselves as justified in doing so. I have allowed your presence here. Do not believe for a moment that my doing so makes you one of us, nor that you know what it is to be a mutant, you foolish, ignorant child."

Even as Emma spoke, Karen could feel anger slowly building through her body, and by the time Emma finished, she was all but seeing red. Her hands clenched into fists. She wanted wanted to lash out. To break something. Her headache came back in full force, an awful full-skull ache that throbbed in time to her pulse. "But this is wrong!" Karen said furiously. "I may not be one of you, I may not even be human, but even I can see that! Maybe this started with the X-Men offering sanctuary to other mutants, but that's not what this is anymore. There's a Sentinel Squad on your front lawn! This is an internment camp, and it's WRONG!"

Emma didn't react to Karen's anger. She didn't raise her voice. Didn't get angry. Instead, she asked, her tone almost conversational, "Have you ever heard of Genosha, Ms. Zor-L?"

Karen blinked, some of the anger draining out of her at the unexpected question. Her head pounded. "Genosha?" she asked.

Emma nodded. "It was a mutant homeland. A nation for our people on an island north of Madagascar." A tiny wistful note came into her voice. "It was a dream given form." That flicker of emotion vanished as quickly as it had come. Nothing but cold as she went on. "Before M-Day, there were nearly two million of us. But before the fall of Genosha, we were almost twenty million."

The implications of that sank in. Emma let them.

"The U.S. government had spent a lot of time and money developing the Sentinel program as a countermeasure to address the Mutant Problem. The man who had originally conceived of the program, a man named Bolivar Trask, had made plans for a kind of 'Wild Sentinel.' Sentinels that could evolve, adapt, be self-sustaining. He never actually created that model. But as near as we can tell, the United States government took his designs, implemented them, and began testing the Wild Sentinels in Ecuador. They were designed to be unable to fall into the wrong hands." She paused for a fraction of a second. "They fell into the wrong hands."

Karen's eyes had gone wide, and her jaw dropped open slightly. Horror had displaced anger.

"They fell upon Genosha just after school started that morning. It all burned. Our children burned. Women. Men. They all died. Sixteen million mutants dead before sunset. S.H.I.E.L.D. did nothing." The barest hint of bitterness. "'Not American soil,' their leader said, as if they were an American operation and not under the authority of the United Nations. The Avengers did nothing. The Fantastic Four did nothing. No one intervened. No one came to save our people. The rest of the world did **nothing.**" The ice cracked, and beneath it there was rage and grief combined almost inseparably, so completely joined that even those seeds which Psyche sought to cull and sort were not more intermixed. "They let our children burn at the hands of the weapons they had themselves designed for that very purpose."

She had been there, Karen realized. Emma Frost had been in Genosha when it had all burned. The way she spoke was as one who had seen it happen. … and she hadn't been able to stop it.

Emma shut her eyes. When she opened them again, her body had shifted into diamond, and the emotion was once again locked beneath the ice. "You're right," she said. "This situation is wrong. It has been wrong for a very long time. We have suffered massacres before. And if we provoke the humans, we will suffer them again. As long as we live beneath the same sky, they will hate us. Don't make it worse for us."

It was uncomfortable to feel sympathy for Emma Frost. That didn't stop Karen from saying what she needed to say, though it leavened her tone with compassion. "_There is another sky_," she said gently. "But you're wrong. It doesn't have to be this way. Humans and human mutants don't have to hate each other," and then she was no longer talking as if humans and mutants were a separate species, and she was paraphrasing Jor-El, and speaking words straight from the heart that Xander never could have said unironically. "You have such a capacity for good, if you could just _see_ it! You can be a great people, Emma. I know you wish to be. You only lack the light to..."

"Get out," Emma said.

"God damn it, Ms. Frost," Karen tried to begin.

"Get. OUT."

And there was that anger again. Karen turned and stalked out of Emma's office without another word.

It was already dark out. The storm contributed to that. The fact that it was getting towards late October did the rest. Karen had made it to the back door when the whole mansion shook, and a wave of fire poured out from the side facing away from the refugee city, turning all the snow on the ground instantly to steam. Santo's voice came filtering through the wind of the storm, bellowing, "OH NO YOU DON'T! DAMN IT, COME BACK H- WOAAAAAAAAAAH!" at the top of his lungs, followed by a crunch. The world seemed to ripple as a barrier of crackling blue energy swept across the school, sending Karen flying through a wall to tumble out onto the snow. Then the screams started.

Karen flipped up to her feet and ran. She moved through the snow around the perimeter of the barrier faster than any human could even dream. The school was _missing_. All she could see was a crackling blue hemisphere of power where the main building used to be. A glance up and down and left and right showed her that the only students still present were those who were already in the dorms when whatever this was had happened. And Santo. She found him lying just beyond the barrier lying facedown on the scorched earth near the path to the boathouse. "Santo" she said. "What's the what?" She helped him to his feet.

Santo looked nervous and gave a nervous, cheesy grin, which somehow still looked natural on his huge stony face. "Oh, you know," he said, "Same old."

Karen took a breath. Shut her eyes for a second and a half. Let out the breath. Then, with as much patience as she had left to her after that argument with Emma, she asked, "What happened?"

Santo shifted in place. "Uh. So we all skipped out on that assembly 'cause it sounded lame, right? And I was tellin' stories to Dawn and some of the other kids, you know, keeping 'em entertained, tryin' to inspire them and stuff."

* * *

><p>Santo grinned fiercely, making a punching motion at the air for emphasis, "And then I punched Pandora in the face!" he said. "She went flying back into the wall and exploded! It was awesome! And that's how I saved Power Girl's universe, beat the Sentinels, scored with Lady Mastermind, and saved the Cuckoos from the Phoenix-Force. And, um, the World-Thingy."<p>

His audience's reactions were varied. Wolf Cub, who resembled nothing so much as a fourteen year old version of the Wolfman straight out of the old Universal horror pictures, seemed to buy it, at least. "Cool!" he enthused.

Pixie - a girl about Dawn's age who looked very much like what her name would suggest, looked like she wasn't sure whether it was true or not.

"He's making it up," Anole said dismissively. He was a handsome green skinned boy, though he had scales and bony spikes in the place of hair. "Santo's always telling stories."

Match shook his head, "I don't care either way," he said.

Dawn Summers didn't say a word. She didn't really want to be here at all, but the others had dragged her along. She didn't see the point. Making friends at this school was pointless. Buffy was going to come for her any day now, and then she'd be going home.

* * *

><p>"How did you know what Dawn was thinking?" Karen asked.<p>

"She told us. When we invited her along. She said, 'What's the point? Buffy's gonna come for me any day now, and then I'll never see any of you again.' Pixie decided to drag her along anyways."

"Ah." Karen sighed, "Look, I don't need the play by play. Just tell me what happened to everyone."

Santo looked nervous. "Um…"

Karen gave him a look. "Santo?"

He blurted it out all at once: "Um, aportalkindofopenedupandsuckedthemallintoLimbo."

Karen stared at him blankly for a second. Then she sighed. Her head throbbed painfully, reinforcing the bad mood, and her patience was nearly at its end. She pinched the bridge of her nose and tried not to take it out on him. "Apparently, this is now happening." Another breath. "Okay, is the portal still open?"

Santo looked at the blue barrier. "I got nothin'," he said.

Karen walked up to it and put her hand into it. Or she tried to, anyways. It tingled. Then she drew her fist back and hit it as hard as she could. The barrier reacted. She went flying, and she'd skipped off the surface of the lake behind the school twice before she managed to arrest her movement. Awesome. Now her head was pounding mercilessly AND ringing. She flew back to Santo and landed next to him again. "Right. Not doing that again. Is there anyone here on campus who can open a portal to Limbo for us?"

Santo shook his head again.

"Then we're going to see Doctor Strange," Karen said, grabbed Santo by the shoulders and lifted into the air. "Right now."

Alarms were sounding outside, and the Sentinel Squad and all the soldiers had gone to high alert. People were screaming, and the teachers and other adult X-Men were mobilizing to respond. Karen ignored it all. One of the new, upgraded Sentinel models tried to challenge her as she flew away. Karen didn't bother to stop. It opened fire with a repulsor beam, but all it hit was the sonic boom she left behind when she broke the sound barrier.

END CHAPTER 02

Author's note:

Yes, Dawn is annoying. There are a few reasons for this. A few of them are mistaken assumptions that she's operating from. She'll get better. We'll be returning to Kyle and Pietro (and touching on Prodigy's training), but I didn't want them to be the main focus of this chapter, and that story was starting to take over, so I pushed a bunch of it into the next chapter.


	31. Unfinished Business, Part II

_Two Days Ago_

The office was dimly lit. The desk-lamp just didn't do enough for a room that size, and the dwindling daylight coming in through the western windows cast bars of light and dark on the floor. There were two desks, one larger than the other. One had a fairly unimpressive computer setup. The other had a clunky combination fax machine/laser printer, a telephone, and a couple of manilla envelopes set upon it in a disorganized fashion. There was a little table with a coffee-maker and a bunch of paper cups on it sitting in a corner. One wall had a bunch of file cabinets and a mostly empty bookcase. Most of the space in the room was empty. The gorgeous dark-skinned woman had been lounging in the nicer of the two office chairs - the one at the desk with the computer station, though she'd sat up since then.

Four men had just walked into the room.

One of them was Pietro Maximoff.

Silence hung in the office for a three-count. Then Pietro folded his arms across his chest. "You're looking for Pietro Maximoff?" he asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, he said, "You've found him. What do you want?"

Kyle Rayner stepped forward into the light coming through the window-blinds, and it cast his face in alternating lines of light and shadow. "Hello, Pietro," he said. "Iron Man told me what happened."

Pietro sneered. "Iron Man," he said, making the name sound like a curse. "You here to stop me, Kyle?"

"I'm here to hear your side of the story," Kyle replied.

"That makes five of us," one of the men - the one with the leather coat and the green shirt - said.

Pietro studied Kyle's face for a subjective eternity. Then he seemed to sag. "Fine," he said.

The office door opened again, and a woman with almost buzz-cut red hair came in. "Did I miss anything?" she asked, her voice colored by a Scottish accent. Her eyes narrowed. "Who's Mr. Black and Green?"

"That's what I'd like to know," the big guy said.

Introductions were made. The redhead was Rahne Sinclair. The dark-skinned woman was M. Jacket-guy was Jamie Madrox. The big guy was Guido. The otherwise normal looking guy was Rictor.

Then it was Kyle's turn. "The name's Kyle Rayner," he said. "I'm a Green Lantern. That's sort of a intergalactic space cop, though I don't think we technically exist in this universe. I met Pietro and his sister a couple years back when my team - we were called the Justice League - teamed up with with the Avengers to deal with a threat to both of our worlds."

Other people might have thought his story was unlikely. Other people might have taken issue with his claim to be from another universe. X-Factor, however, consisted entirely of former X-Men. They didn't blink.

"All right," Jamie said, "We know each other. Great. Now about that explanation."

Everyone looked at Pietro expectantly.

He let out a breath. "... They were going to kill her," he said.

"Who's they?" Jamie asked.

"Xavier, the X-Men, the Avengers." He looked at the ground. "It was bad. Wanda had lost control of her powers, and a couple of Avengers had died. But she'd never meant to!" The room was silent. He swallowed. "A long time ago, I swore on my life that I would protect her, and they were going to kill her! Our own father was ready to let them! I couldn't let that happen. She was sorry. She wanted to take it all back. What she'd done. The people she'd killed."

"What did you do, Pietro?" Kyle asked.

Pietro looked up. "I convinced her that she should try," he said. Silence. The noise of a car passing on the street outside. Snow drifting past the windows. "Magnus had always chosen his 'mutant race' over his own children. We never had a chance. I just wanted…" He trailed off. "She used her power. She reordered reality to take it all back, to make it better, and to make everyone she loved happy." His eyes were shining with unshed tears now. "She gave them everything they had ever wanted! They shouldn't have even been able to remember that things had ever been different, but they did, and they ruined it. Everything was burning, and I was dying, and our father had turned against us. He was ready to let them kill her, so she…" He trailed off, and a tear traced its way down his cheek.

Kyle got it. "So Wanda did the one thing she knew would hurt him more than anything else," he said.

Pietro nodded. "No more mutants," he said bitterly.

* * *

><p>The New World<br>by P.H. Wise  
>A BtVS, Power Girl, DCU, and Marvel Comics crossover fanfic<p>

Chapter 3: Unfinished Business, Part 2

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. I'm honestly not sure who owns Buffy the Vampire Slayer anymore, but it used to be Fran and Kaz Kuzui. This chapter is based in part on 'The Search for Magik' story arc from the New X-Men. I don't own that, either.

* * *

><p><em>Now<em>

Dawn Summers was bruised, tired, dirty, and she wanted to go home. This was not a change from her status quo. Well, the tired, bruised and dirty bits were, but she had wanted to go home since she'd gotten here. It had been sudden: one moment she'd been sitting at her desk, writing in her diary. Buffy hadn't been home, but her mom was downstairs making dinner, and she could smell it even all the way upstairs. Lasagna tonight. A good smell. Familiar. Like home. Then she'd just blinked, and she was standing in some strange dorm room. She thought she'd handled it pretty well. Except for the passing out part. But that had totally not been her fault. Oh, sure, she'd felt like panicking at first, but then she'd spotted a photo of Girl-Xander and a group of smiling teenagers that she supposed were probably her friends sitting on the desk, and she'd played it totally cool from there on.

She was cool like that.

Girl-Xander. … It was still a little weird thinking of Girl-Xander as Karen. Mostly because she _wasn't _Karen. She was Xander. XANDER. Just Girl-Xander, which was like regular Xander except girl-shaped and better, because Girl-Xander didn't have a heinous bitch of a girlfriend named Cordelia Chase who kept being nasty to her that he'd rather spend time with than hang out with her. Technically, Girl-Xander didn't actually remember her. Technically that was because of… reasons. Reasons she didn't want to think about, because every time she did, it felt like this huge yawning pit opened up in her chest. But not remembering her just meant Girl-Xander didn't have any preconceptions about her, right? It was a good thing. Wasn't it? And if Girl-Xander hung out with a bunch of weirdos with powers, well, it wasn't like there was any lack of those in Sunnydale. Buffy had powers, after all. And she'd heard about some girl in Buffy's class who turned invisible. And Willow did magic.

Someone said something. She wasn't sure what it was. It was hot, and her head felt weird.

"...awn?" A voice said, getting louder and more clear. "Dawn? Are you OK?"

Dawn Summers opened her eyes, and the world spun back into focus. Except it wasn't the world. She was lying on her back staring up at the sky. Except it wasn't the sky. Pixie was looking down on her with concern and had a hand on her shoulder. Behind her, Match and Anole and Wolf Cub, Loa and Gentle looked on with concern, while Blindfold stood with her eyeless face uncovered, peering out with sightlessly into the fire-lit darkness.

The hellish landscape of Limbo sprawled all around them. It was hot, and it stank of brimstone, and the sky was full of smoke. There was a red glow all around them.

"Where are we?" Dawn asked, her eyes very wide, her voice faint.

"We're in trouble," Anole said. "I think, I think this is Limbo."

Dawn's jaw dropped open slightly, and for a moment, she forgot about how unfair it all was, and felt very small. "... _Oh_," she said.

* * *

><p>The journey to New York City wasn't a long one the way Karen took it, rocketing as she did from the Xavier Institute near the border of New York and Connecticut on a more or less straight line to Yonkers at hypersonic speed. She had to start slowing down over Yonkers, though she still rattled windows in that city as she passed. From there she followed the Hudson until she hit Manhattan. It was a little weird how easy navigation by air was getting, but she didn't have time to worry about that. When she saw the Village on her left, she veered towards it, decelerating further as she made her way to Doctor Strange's residence at 177A Bleecker Street.<p>

Her headache spiked just before she arrived. It felt like a weight pulling her towards the ground. She landed a full block short of Strange's three-story townhouse in front of a little hole in the wall red shack called Percy's Pizza. She could actually see the townhouse from where she stood, strangely isolated and alone in the middle of an otherwise thriving part of the city, storefronts on either side of it, and across from it, but there it stood in the middle of it; few walked near it. Fewer still walked along the sidewalk in front of it. Yet the isolation wasn't something anyone did consciously. People just found reasons not to walk there. Not that there were many people out to begin with in this weather, and those that there were were bundled up against the cold. The snowfall was at a lull here, drifting gently down in the still evening. Karen could see her breath on the air.

She set Santo down and glanced about.

Santo took a few seconds regaining his balance after supersonic flight. It wasn't something he was used to, though if his loud whoop was any indication, he'd enjoyed the experience. "That. Was. AWESOME!" he said, and turned to give Karen a high five. When she didn't seem to notice his effort, he stopped his hand in midair, then lowered it with a frown.

The few people on the street were moving away from them. Finding reasons not to be around two obvious mutants. Like the isolated townhouse less than a block away, it wasn't anything anyone seemed to do on purpose.

"Karen?" Santo asked.

Footsteps crunched in the snow. A man was approaching, and unlike the rest of the crowd, he didn't avoid approaching the two of them. He was dressed much like he had been in her dream. A middle-aged white man in a business suit with mouse brown hair and dark eyes. He had exchanged his suit jacket for a heavier winter one, but that was his only concession to the weather. His appearance was immaculate, and everything about the way he moved spoke of casual authority, of privilege.

Karen's heart began to race, and her headache utterly ceased, like someone had flipped a switch in her brain: the pain was gone. "You!"

The man smiled magnanimously. "Me," he confirmed.

Santo looked at the man, then at Karen, not really sure what was going on, "You know this guy?" he asked.

Karen balled up her fists and tensed, her eyes beginning to glow with a deadly red light, and then didn't move an inch further. She tried. This man was too dangerous. You couldn't afford to let him be conscious around you. And she did absolutely nothing. Her first reaction was panic. "Why can't I move?" Then it sank in. It really sank in, and she went pale. "_Oh, crap,_" she whispered.

Santo scowled, and smacked one rocky fist into an equally rocky palm with a grinding thunk. "Whatever you're doing, you better stop it or I'm gonna…" He trailed off in mid-sentence, his expression growing slack.

"I thought it was time we had a conversation," the man said. "You've been operating independently for a long time now. I want a full report."

Karen's mouth opened before she could stop it. Words began to tumble out. She told him everything. She gave him the highlights of what had happened to her since she'd arrived on this world, her battles with Power Girl, the final confrontation in which the other person who had been in Power Girl's body had jumped into hers, and how, instead of choosing to end her life, he had loved her instead, accepting her and all that she was. How they had become one in body, mind, and spirit. She told the man about the X-Men, about their defenses, their abilities.

She kept Irma and their relationship from the man, but that was all she was able to hold back, and it took all of her willpower to do so.

She told him about General Ross and his troops. She told him the same about the Fantastic Four and the Avengers, and of the journey they had made to save New Earth. She was concise, brief, offering only pertinent details and summarizing the rest. And with every treasonous sentence she spoke, her eyes went wider and wider.

The man listened quietly, nodding along as she spoke, occasionally asking a clarifying question but otherwise looking thoughtful. When she finally finished speaking, he let out a breath and then said, "Well, I can't say I like what this Xander did to you, my dear, but we can still use it. I'll erase him when the time comes. Until then, keep doing what you're doing. Maybe push General Ross a little bit harder. Don't get me wrong, you're doing great, really ramping things up, but you could push things harder. Try for a violent outcome if you can, but don't do anything that would make the telepaths suspicious. I'll check in again just before the two day deadline. Don't bring Rockboy with you next time."

She still couldn't move, but Karen could control her voice again. She glared at the man. "You won't get away with this," she said. "I'll stop you."

The man grinned an easy, boyish sort of grin. "Stop me?" he asked. "You won't even remember me." His nose had begun to bleed. He dabbed at it with a handkerchief.

Karen grit her teeth, helpless rage rising up within her as she marshalled her will, everything she could focus against the man's powers. "Like hell I won't!" she snapped. "I'm fed up with all this psychic bullshit! I'm done being the hapless buttmonkey every time a telepath comes along! I'm…"

"Karen?" Santo asked with concern. "Ya zoned out there for a second."

Karen blinked. She was on Bleecker street. Just a block away from Doctor Strange's home. "... What was I just talking about?" she asked.

Santo made a sound that could have been interpreted as 'I dunno.' Then he blinked. "Hey, you OK?" he asked. "You're crying."

Karen looked at her own reflection in a car window. He was right. She was crying. Looked like she had been for a minute or two. "I am," she confirmed. "That's weird." She wiped her eyes and shook her head. "Probably allergies or something," she said.

Santo looked skeptical. Sounded it, too. "Allergies?" he asked.

Karen shook her head. "It's not important, Santo. We've got friends who need our help, and we're here. Let's go."

They ran across the street through the snow. It didn't take long. And then Karen and Santo stood before the doors of Stephen Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum. Karen knocked three times, and the hollow boom of it seemed to echo through the whole building.

A bald Chinese man opened the door, dressed all in green. He recognized them, but he shook his head, "If you are here to see Doctor Strange," he said, "then I am afraid I must tell you that he is unavailable."

Karen started to push her way inside, but Wong blocked her way. She could have shoved past him, but only by force. "C'mon, Wong," she said, "I need his help. Xavier's school just got sucked into Limbo, and we need Doctor Strange to open a door for us so we can go rescue everybody."

Wong shook his head. "I am sorry. But the Doctor is not at home. He is attending to his duties as Sorcerer Supreme elsewhere in the world." He paused. "I expect him to return within a few hours if you wish to wait."

Karen and Santo exchanged glances, and then Karen shook her head, letting out a frustrated noise. "No. I think… I think it'll be too late by then."

Wong looked apologetic at least. "I would aid you if I could, but opening a path to Limbo is a task that is beyond my meager skill. Nevertheless, I wish you both luck in your quest."

There wasn't anything else to be said after that. Wong shut the door, and Karen grit her teeth in frustration.

Santo scowled at the ground. "OK," he said, "Do we know anyone else who's a badass wizard who can open a portal to Limbo?" He thought about it. "Ya think Reed Richards could do it?"

The mention of yet another member of the Illuminati did not improve Karen's mood. She shook her head. "Reed Richards is useless," she snapped. Then, noticing Santo's wary look, she forced her anger down. It wasn't his fault the door had been shut in their faces. "Sorry. Long day. I'm sure Reed could figure something out, but we'd have no way of knowing if he was…" She trailed off. "Santo, you're a genius!"

Santo grinned. "Think so?" he asked.

"Definitely," Karen said, pulling her cell phone out of her pocket. "We do know a badass wizard," she said. "I just have to see if he's around, first." She had to slow down slightly in order to let the phone's interface keep up with her, but she managed it long enough to type out a text message and hit 'send.'

Five million years later (or about a minute if you go by what the clock on Karen's phone said), a text came back: 'Karen, hey. Yes, I can help. Come on over.'

Karen let out the breath she'd been holding. "Oh, thank God," she said. "OK, let's go."

Santo frowned even as he held up his arms to make it easier for Karen to get a good grip on him. "Go where? Who'd you just text?"

Karen grabbed Santo and took off once more. "Remember how you said you wanted to fight the Young Avengers?" she asked.

"Yeah?"

"Would you settle for a team-up instead?"

Santo's rocky face broke into a wide grin.

* * *

><p>"No problem," Loa said. "We're okay. This is going to be okay." She was maybe a year older than Dawn. Maybe two. She had long brown hair and was covered in this weird tattoo-pattern.<p>

"Girl," Gentle said - Gentle was this handsome black guy from some country Dawn had never heard of. It started with a W. Wakandia, or something like that. "Blindfold, you saw this occur with your power. What happens next?" He had a bunch of tattoos, too, except his looked metallic. He wasn't wearing a shirt, and he had like a gazillion gleaming ab-muscles, and it was distracting.

"She will come," Blindfold said, "But no, not in time." Blindfold might have been pretty if she'd had eyes. And took better care of herself. She had stringy black hair, but that was fixable, and her face was pretty enough, but seeing nothing but smooth skin where her eyes should be was utterly creepifying.

The others kept talking, but Dawn wasn't listening. She turned away from the group and looked down across the hellish landscape of Limbo. … and she saw movement. Things were approaching their position. Demons. Dozens and dozens of demons. Dawn swallowed. "Um, guys?"

Where was Buffy when you needed her?

As if in response to Dawn's thoughts, Blindfold said, "No, she will not come." The demons reached the foot of the rise that they were all standing upon. "She will not come in time."

"Watch out!" Match yelled, and send a huge blast of fire into the demonic ranks. His real name was Ben, but nobody called him that. He was hard to look at, because his body was always on fire. It didn't hurt him, though. At least, when Dawn had asked in class the other day, he'd said it hadn't, and it didn't seem to interfere with his ability to wear clothes, which was … well, kind of baffling, actually.

They all started fighting, then. Match kept on blasting demons with his fire, but there were too many. One of them charged Loa and sent a claw into her chest… which came out the other side like she hadn't even been there, and then started dissolving. She'd flinched, but she wasn't hurt. Wolf Cub went all teen-wolf with his werewolf claws and started tearing into demons. Anole didn't seem to have much in the way of useful powers here, though he was really fast and really agile. Gentle and Blindfold just stood there, doing nothing. Pixie started flying over the fight and dousing every demon in sight in … was that faerie dust?

Dawn hid behind Gentle. She wanted to fight, wanted to help, but the sight of those awful claws and all that slime…

"Summers!" Anole shouted, "You got any powers that might be helpful? Because I don't think we're going to be able to hold these guys!"

Dawn shivered. "I… I don't have any powers!"

"You're a mutant, aren't you?" Pixie asked as she soared by overhead.

Mutant. That's what they'd called her. "I don't know anything about that," Dawn insisted, shaking her head. She remembered having done - something - she wasn't sure what to the wall and running through it faster than she should have been able to, back when those men and that woman had been talking about what to do with her, but… but…

"Come ON, Summers!" Anole shouted, ducking under a blow from a creature that seemed to have hammers in the place of its hands. "You can't really be THAT much of a newbie. Even if you'd only just manifested the day before M-Day, you have to have…" he jumped over a flurry of whipping tentacles, "SOME idea of what you can do!"

Dawn grit her teeth in annoyance. "I TOLD YOU I DON'T…" That was when she realized she'd started to glow with blue light, and could smell the distinct scent of ozone even amongst the stench of Limbo. It startled her so much that she tripped and fell on her butt. The light went out. "I don't know how to use them!" she said. "I didn't have any powers before a couple days ago!"

One of the demons came after Gentle, then, and instantly, his muscle-mass tripled. He caught the creature's fist and crushed it with almost casual ease before delivering a hammer-blow to its head that send it sprawling. The creature did not move again. He turned to a second creature, and then let out a cry as his tattoos began to flare with dangerous looking light. He shuddered, and stopped trying to fight, instead retreating back to the crest of the hill where Blindfold stood.

"Come on, guys!" Anole said, "Let's retreat to Blindfold's position! We can regroup and get in a better position to work together. We can take these guys if we just work…" his words cut off into an agonized scream as a demon with curved, blade-like arms swung at him from behind and cut off his right arm at the shoulder.

"VICTOR!" Pixie screamed.

Dawn's eyes went wide. Her heartbeat thudded in her own ears like a drum. Every cell in her body seemed to crackle with energy as her body kicked into overdrive. Then the blue light sprang up around her, radiating in concentric rings. Her eyes flashed electric blue. Something was about to happen. Something very, very dangerous. Loa grabbed Anole and dragged him up to where Blindfold stood, narrowly evading a bladed arm as she went. The demons were charging. The one that had taken off Anole's arm was rushing towards Dawn. She instinctively flung her hands forward just as it came within striking distance.

The demon exploded. On contact with the blue light emanating from Dawn's body in bright concentric rings, a four foot by four foot section of the creature's body was burned up in an instant. A wave of lethal heat radiated out from Dawn's outstretched hands as the blade-armed demon fell against her plasma emanation and was instantly converted into gas in an expanding wave of heat and pressure. Dawn herself was completely unaffected, but the other demons who were a part of the charge immediately burst into flames even as they were knocked flat by the blast, some of them killed, none of them left untouched.

The horde stopped in its tracks as bits of steaming demon rained down from above. Behind her, the other mutants save Blindfold stared at Dawn in shock.

Then a blonde girl descended from above. A blond girl dressed in what seemed like a weird parody of armor that covered her like a bikini except for the addition of shoulder guards and gauntlets. A blonde girl with demonic horns, a devil's tail, goat hoofs, and carrying a battle-axe almost as big as she was. She landed a few yards to Dawn's left and surveyed the destruction with an approving eye. "Not bad," she said with an unmistakable Russian accent.

* * *

><p>Billy Kaplan was waiting on the front steps of his parents' house when Karen and Santo arrived. There was another teen boy with him - a handsome, broad shouldered guy with blue eyes and short blonde hair. Both were in costume already, Billy dressed as Wiccan, and the other guy in a black vest with a band of purple across the chest plus black pants and black boots.<p>

Karen felt a little underdressed in her Superboy duds. Yeah, same outfit as two days ago. She'd done her laundry yesterday, and it was clean, and it wasn't like she had been planning to lead a rescue mission to Limbo. "Hey Billy," she said.

Billy nodded. "Hello, Karen," he said.

"This is Santo," she said, gesturing to Santo. "He's good people. Santo, meet Billy Kaplan and…" she trailed off, looking at the blonde guy, "Teddy, right?"

The blonde guy grinned. "That's me. Teddy Rufus."

"Nice to meetcha," Santo said. "You ready to do some clobbering? Because there's someone where we're going that needs a beating."

Karen held up a hand, "Wait."

Santo shook his head, "No way! Our friends need us! Open up the portal and let's go!"

"I want to rescue them as much as you do, but we can't just let Bill and Ted here take us on an excellent adventure."

Billy and Teddy both cringed visibly. "Hey," Teddy said disapprovingly, "I'm calling foul on that one."

Karen paused and thought about it. Then she grimaced. "Okay, that was out of line. Sorry. But my point is we need a plan. We might not know much about what we're gonna run into, but we can at least make sure we're all on the same page, right? Any of you know anything about Limbo?"

"I know the X-Men have been there before," Santo said. "They beat up this demon lord named Belasco. Or something. … I wasn't really paying attention when they talked about it."

"It's a hell dimension," Billy said. "Belasco is the name of the demon in charge. If your school got sucked into Limbo, you can bet he's behind it."

"All right," Karen said, "Who's this Belasco guy? Are we talking your basic garden variety big bad, or is this guy more of a thirty-five foot long, six hundred pound twinkie?"

"He's bad news," Billy said. "I don't think we can actually beat him. I mean, I'm not an expert on the guy or anything, but as far as I know, he's one of the most powerful sorcerers in the world. And he's almost invulnerable. And he's immortal."

"Immortal can't be killed or immortal doesn't stay dead?" Karen asked.

"Um," Billy said, and thought about it, "Guess we'll find out?"

"OK," Karen said, and frowned thoughtfully. "Anything we can do to give ourselves a better chance against the guy? Because I may be invincible against most things, but I'm distinctly vincible when it comes to magic."

Teddy smirked, giving Billy a sidelong glance. "Think you're up to a few pre-battle buffs, Wiccan?"

Wiccan rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I guess we'll go with the standard, plus some extra to counter mind control, paralysis, and your basic protective barriers against hostile magic. None of it will hold up for long against a guy like Belasco, but it's better than nothing."

"And suddenly," Karen said, "My life is a D&D game." She thought about that. "... Not that I'm complaining. Hey, can you cast 'Haste?'" Karen grinned. "I wanna see what Haste does to a Kryptonian."

Santo directed a long-suffering look up at the sky. "Nerds," he groused.

* * *

><p>"...vid," someone said. It was a burst of sound to his ears. He couldn't quite… everything was dark. He couldn't. See. "David!" Sooraya. That was Sooraya's voice. Coming from his left side. "You must wake now!" she said. There was fear in her voice. He opened his eyes, and the world swam slowly into focus. Sooraya was on his left, trapped in some kind of rock prison. "Uhh…" he groaned. "Sooraya? What happened?"<p>

"We're in big trouble," Sooraya said.

"No kidding," said another voice - Cessily's voice - from his right.

They were in the courtyard of an enormous castle, and David Alleyne was chained to a broken pillar on a raised platform, with Sooraya and Cessily on either side. A vast host of demons and monsters of every description moved through the courtyard. … Some of them were carrying people. Unconscious people that he recognized. He didn't see any of the adult X-Men down there, but as far as he could tell, almost single student from school, including the new ones, so a full 200 of them - was either being carried over to the cages that lined the west side of the courtyard or were already there. The courtyard had taken a beating. There were scorch marks everywhere, and in some places the rock looked half-molten. Some of it was still glowing with heat. There were ashes everywhere. He saw Laura in the din, both of her hands bound up in enormous stone manacles. She looked _pissed_. Actually, the only students she didn't see here were Noriko, Julian, Karen and Santo. He grimaced and took stock of his own resources. Chained to a pillar. Power Ring on his finger. Unable to… wait. They hadn't taken his Power Ring? … Of course they hadn't. These monsters would have no idea what a Green Lantern ring was. "Ring," he said, "How much power do we have?"

Cessily and Sooraya both looked at him questioningly. "What?" Cessily asked.

"**2% power remains, Lantern Alleyne," **the ring reported.

"Right," David muttered. He looked around at the burning red sky. "OK. All I remember was fire. Like there was an explosion. Cess, did you see what happened?"

Cessily shook her head. "I was asleep. I woke up when I heard screaming. We were already here. I saw the Cuckoos fighting them. They must have killed hundreds of those monsters. The Three-in-One just burned them to ashes!" A beat passed. "It wasn't enough, though. There were just too many, and…" She looked to where the Cuckoos were lying in one of the cages on the west side of the courtyard. All five of them were lying apparently unconscious, wearing strange metal helmets that completely encased their heads.

The last of the students were forced into their cages. The demons began to mill about expectantly. A murmur ran through the crowd.

"I guess you two can't use your powers in those stone things?" David asked.

Sooraya shook her head. "I really hate magic," Cessily said darkly.

David thought. Then he formulated a plan. "OK," he said, "I can break you two out, but then I need to recharge my ring before I cut loose. Think you can distract the bad guys for thirty seconds or so?"

A creature emerged from the place, a red-skinned humanoid with black hair and horns and pointed ears dressed in elaborate red robes and bearing jewelry that marked him as royalty. The crowd let out a cheer as he descended the steps.

"Shaitan," Sooraya whispered in horror. "We are outside of Allah's sight. We are in hell."

The creature - Belasco - approached the pillar where David was chained.

"Get it together, Sooraya," David said, "I need thirty seconds. That's it. You ready?"

Sooraya swallowed, marshalled her will, and nodded. "Ready."

"Ready" Cessily said.

**Will.**

David's ring flared with emerald light, and the stone prisons around Sooraya and Cessily shattered. Sooraya's body dissolved into a whirling vortex of sand which fell upon the crowd of demons like the wrath of an angry God, putting out eyes and scouring flesh from their bones. Belasco made a warding gesture, and a barrier of red light flared into view, keeping Sooraya's storm from his own body.

Cessily him him from behind, her right arm formed into a mercury-colored spear. Protective magics flared into being once more, yet her form resisted them, and with all her weight and all the momentum of a running charge behind it, her arm-spear sank through his barrier and through the creature's shoulder. She'd been aiming for his spine.

David's chains shattered. His power battery appeared in the air; he held up his ring and began to chant, a pillar of emerald fire rising up around him as he spoke the words that brought hope to trillions of souls across multiple universes, "**In brightest day, in blackest night…**"

Belasco narrowed his eyes as his blood dripped to the stony ground. He spoke a word in a language that none of them had ever heard that sounded like hate and death, and an unseen force seized Cessily and flung her headlong into the wall of the castle on the far side of the courtyard nearly a hundred yards away. She splattered into what looked like liquid mercury, let out a pained groan, and began to reform herself.

"**No evil shall escape my sight,**" David continued, the light around him growing brighter as power flooded into his ring.

Sooraya scoured her enemies, roiling around Belasco, assaulting him from all sides, slowly forcing her way through his defenses: like Cessily, she too was highly resistant to the effects of magic, and given time, she could begin to hurt her enemy.

Belasco didn't give her that time. He made another series of gestures and spoke a brief chant in that hateful language, and a _vibration_ seemed to pass through Sooraya's dust form. The vortex ceased, and Sooraya fell to the ground, landing back first on a piece of the rocky prison which had contained her, with a crack of breaking bones. She cried out in agony, but did not move.

**Rage. Will. **David pressed on, willing the recharge cycle to move faster. "**Let those who worship evil's might…**"

Belasco strode up the steps to the raised platform where David still stood. "Interesting," he mused. "That power. I have never seen its like. A heart so filled with Will made manifest must be a prize indeed."

"**Beware my power - Green Lantern's light!" **The charging cycle was complete. 100% reserves. Combat protocols online. Force fields online. The uniform of the Green Lantern corps replaced David's civilian clothes, and he brought up his hand, his ring shining like a star, readying his will to strike down the monster before him.

But even as the forcefield came up, in that bare instant before they stabilized at full power, Belasco shoved his left hand forward, his fingers like daggers. There was a brief flash of power as he came in contact with the not yet fully powered forcefield. Then, empowered by the might of the Elder Gods, his fingers slid through the barrier and into David's chest, cutting through flesh and bone with equal ease. Then Belasco ripped out David's heart and held up the organ to the courtyard, showing off his bloody prize.

"DAVID!" Cessily screamed.

"DAVID!" came the screams from a dozen other throats.

**Will.**

His chest a supernova of agony, David didn't fall. Belasco paused in his display, turning to look at the foe he thought he had slain.

David smirked, and it must have looked psychotic, because Belasco, demon lord of Limbo, was taken aback, glancing in disbelief from the bloody heart in his hand to David himself. Then David leveled his ring-clad fist at Belasco and announced, "_My turn_."

* * *

><p>Nightwing, Rockslide, Hulkling and Wiccan came out of the portal a thousand feet above Belasco's castle. They hadn't been expecting that per se, but they'd planned for the possibility: Wiccan had cast a spell on Hulkling and Rockslide that would allow them to land safely before they'd even gone into the portal.<p>

Belasco's castle lay below them, and the sprawling wilds of Limbo all around it. The castle had seen better days: the eastern section had been reduced to rubble, and none of its towers still stood. Karen could see all of her friends except for Noriko and Julian in the castle's courtyard, and it was a scene of pandemonium. Nearly two hundred mutants were fighting an even larger host of demons hand to hand. … or was that hand-to-mutant-power? The kids with powers that were useful in combat had formed a wall, and the kids without combat-useful powers were hiding behind them for the most part. She caught a brief flash of X-23 cutting a demon in half with a swipe of her claws, then blinding another with a kick that sent one of her foot-claws across its eyes. Prodigy was in the air taking the fight to what Karen could only assume was Belasco: a red-skinned devil in red robes shrouded in mystical might. Both Prodigy and Belasco were breathing hard, and both looked battered as all hell.

Belasco was missing his left arm at the elbow. It was just... gone, and the flesh above it was horrifically burned.

Cessily and Sooraya were down.

"YOU CANNOT DEFEAT ME!" Belasco bellowed. "YOUR WILL IS NOTHING BEFORE THE POWER OF THE ELDER GODS!" Then he lowered his voice, though it was still loud and angry, "Tell me where Illyana Rasputin is, and even now I will let you live!"

Nightwing hit Belasco with a flying kick at Mach 12. The demon's mystical protections flared to life, but even his considerable sorcerous might could not stop such a blow: he went down, tore a hole in the stone courtyard and kept going into the dungeon below it, and the one below that, and the one below that, and the one below that, stopping only when he hit the very foundations of the castle at the seventh dungeon.

"Hey David," Karen said, "Sorry we're late." Then she saw Prodigy's condition, and her eyes widened: there was an open, bloody hole in his chest, and where his heart should have been was a glowing green facsimile forged from pure Willpower pumping his blood through his veins. "Oh my God!" she exclaimed. "What happened to you!?

Prodigy looked down at the hole in the courtyard that Belasco had smashed after he'd taken Karen's kick. "Asshole ripped out my heart," he said. "I've seen that trick before. I had a backup ready, just in case."

Karen took that in. Then she took in the horrific damage that the castle had suffered, including the eastern half reduced to rubble and the fact that all of its towers lay in ruins. It was then that she decided that she never, ever wanted David Alleyne pissed off at her.

Below them, Hulkling and Rockslide landed in the courtyard and immediately waded into the ranks of the demons, smacking them aside and crushing them with almost contemptuous ease. They made it a competition between them, seeing which of them could deal with more.

Wiccan descended to Nightwing and Prodigy's altitude. "He's coming," he said. "And I think you've pissed him off."

"I'm gonna do a lot more than just piss him off," Nightwing said darkly.

Power gathered beneath the castle. Power like a tangible thing. There was an undeniable weight to it that drew the eye. Streamers of red light flowed from the surrounding landscape down into the hole Belasco had made as he gathered his might; it grew brighter and brighter as he ascended. "ENOUGH!" he roared as he flew up through the hole he had made in the floor. "I will brook no further interruptions! This battle is OVER!" He cut loose. Karen wasn't sure what exactly he hit them with, but it looked like a hundred balls of yellow lightning that exploded and shot lightning bolts in every direction when it got close to someone, and it hurt like HELL.

Nightwing started to twist in the air, to spit out of the way, but a secondary spell hit her at the precise moment she needed to alter course. She took the lightning to the face, and she fell to the courtyard with loops of red light around each of her limbs. She couldn't move her arms or legs. Couldn't fly. Couldn't…

Rage built in her, and her eyes began to glow red.

Belasco landed next to her. He snapped his fingers, and her body floated into the air as he examined her. "Interesting," he said, "A compound soul. It's been ages since I've seen one. It reeks of the science of man, and yet… there is a distinct touch of Chaos to it. And..." he sniffed the air, "Touched by a Hellmouth as well." He tried to look her in the eye.

Wiccan started chanting something above her.

"Don't look into his eyes, Karen!" Sooraya whispered from where she lay motionless on her back upon a piece of rubble. "Shaitan can kill with a look!"

"So can I," Nightwing said, and looked Belasco directly in the eyes. Under ordinary circumstances, Belasco would have won that struggle, but Karen was prepared: Wiccan's protective enchantments resisted his attempt to take her soul. She blasted in him in the eyeballs with full strength heat-vision. The effect was horrific. The demon's eyes ruptured, and the twin beams of released solar energy kept right on going, burning through the creature's skull with heat like the sun itself, and blasting out the other side to cut a hole in the far castle wall.

Belasco dropped to the ground, dead. Wiccan's spell hit him a second later, and it seemed to leech power out of the dead body somehow, little streamers of it floating away into the air.

"Guess it's type two immortality," Wiccan commented. "The spell I hit him with should keep him from reviving for a while. Let's finish off these demons and go home."

It was over a few minutes later, the last demon in the castle defeated. Miraculously, none of the students had died. Well, not miraculously: Josh was on the job, healing the wounded, making sure mortal injuries didn't do their work on the student body.

Karen rushed over to the Cuckoos and, as carefully as she could, took off the helmets one at a time. Each of them stirred as soon as the helmet came off, the enchanted slumber dispelled. Irma's was the last she removed. "Oh, thank God," she said when she saw that Irma was unharmed.

Irma smiled, and hugged Karen as soon as she was awake enough to do so. "Well," she said, "That was exciting. For a Thursday."

Karen nodded solemnly. "But boring by Friday standards, right?"

"It's not fair to judge other days by Friday standards," Irma replied easily. "Friday is Apocalypse day. Everyone knows that."

… and that was when Pixie, Illyana Rasputin, Anole, Blindfold, Gentle, Loa, Match, Wolf Cub, and Dawn Summers all teleported into the courtyard, ready for battle.

Then another portal opened up and deposited Noriko, Julian, and one of the big armored Sentinels on top of the north section of the castle, which promptly collapsed beneath the massive Sentinel's weight. "We're here to rescue…" Nori began, then trailed off. "Oh," she said.

Dead silence fell over the whole group for a second. "... Are we late?" Dawn asked. "We're late, aren't we."

Ilyana looked around in surprise, then saw Belasco's body, walked over to it, and planted her axe in his chest. "Hey Pixie," she called, "Come here and stab him a few times with your new soul-sword so he stays dead!"

Pixie glowered. "Do I have to?"

"YES!"

So she did.

* * *

><p>It was really late by the time they finally got back to the Xavier institute, and most of the students were in varying states of exhaustion. Josh was practically dead on his feet thanks to all the healing he had done, up to and including repairing Sooraya's broken back and regrowing David's heart for him (and sealing up the hole). … He corrected David's eyesight while he was at it. It was probably unnecessary, but Josh was showing off, and that was before he'd been completely, utterly exhausted by the use of his powers.<p>

The damage to the mansion was already being repaired. Forge was on the job, using Karen wasn't sure what - maybe some kind of nanotech? Whatever it was, it did the work of a hundred construction workers in a few hours.

Their official debriefing by the older X-Men was going to wait until morning. Laura had given her abbreviated report of what had happened in the meantime, and Karen had left Santo to give his version of their involvement. A demon lord attacks the institute looking for revenge on a supposedly dead but turns out not quite dead student. Yeah, that sounded like Thursday to her.

Karen spent what was left of the evening with Irma in a student lounge, though Dawn wound up joining them after about ten minutes, after which it was no longer quite the same, though hey, if the stories she was hearing about how Dawn had handled herself in Limbo were any indication, the girl wasn't all bad. A few others came in thirty minutes after Dawn, Cessily among them.

It was really late by the time Nori came into the lounge. The clock on the wall said it was just a few minutes until midnight. Dawn was asleep on the couch, and Irma had drifted off maybe ten minutes ago, her head on Karen's shoulder. But Nori's eyes were bright as she approached Karen. "Is it true?" Noriko asked excitedly, which was weird, because Nori wasn't that excitable.

Karen blinked. "Is what true?"

Nori glanced at Dawn's sleeping form, then back to Karen. "That Dawn Summers is newly manifested mutant?" she asked. She lowered her voice almost to a whisper. "As in, days ago?"

Karen thought about that for a second. Then she remembered having gone down to the Cerebra chamber while the Three-in-One were scanning for new mutants. That there had been no new mutants since M-Day, when nine tenths of the world's mutants had lost their powers. Which had been the same day she'd arrived in this world. The significance of the question hit her full force. Was she? Did she count as one, given that she was created by magic, and was apparently host to something called The Key? … Yeah. However she was made, Karen supposed she did count as one. She took a deep breath before nodding. "She is."

A single tear traced its way down Noriko's cheek. To call the expression that followed a smile was wholly inadequate. A smile is a simple thing. A smile was just a flexing of the muscles throughout the mouth and at the corner of the eyes. This was something more. This was hope. "Oh my God," Noriko breathed. She scrubbed at her eyes and laughed. A simple, honest laugh. It drew the eyes of others in the student lounge.

"Nori?" Cessily asked as she approached. "What's going on?"

Noriko looked at Cessily; Cessily saw the hope in Noriko's smile, and her worried expression vanished. "Dawn Summers is a new mutant," Noriko told the other girl, gesturing to Dawn.

Dawn stirred, her eyes blinking open sleepily. "...What?" she asked. "What's going on?"

Noriko turned to Dawn. "Dawn, you just manifested, right? You got your powers just a few days ago, right?"

Dawn nodded, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "Um, yeah. Same night I got here."

Hope dawned in Cessily's eyes. Her face was transformed by it. The shadows seemed to lift, and the whole world seemed just a tiny bit brighter. She let out a happy squeal and hugged Dawn within an inch of her life, leaving the still groggy girl more confused than not.

Others in the room heard the news as well. It passed quickly from person to person, moving first through the school and then through the refugee camp like wildfire, and to ears beyond that camp as well, and with it came Hope to a people who had none. A new mutant had manifested. For the first time since M-Day, the mutants of Earth had reason to believe that maybe, just maybe, they weren't doomed to extinction.

Karen was careful not to disturb Irma when she got up, but Irma woke up anyways. Karen kissed the other girl (who woke up way more quickly than Dawn), and then walked outside into the storm, listening as the whole tenor of the school seemed to change with the news. Students were waking up sleepers to tell them the news. She looked out upon the snow-covered grounds, upon the refugees, the soldiers, the Sentinels, and she smiled.

Irma came up and embraced her from behind, and despite the cold, Karen felt warm. There was a slight tingle as Irma slipped into her thoughts. Karen let her. It had been like that when they'd made love on the astral plane: not an invasion of privacy, but an intimacy that was impossible to put into words. A sharing of self that didn't combine the two, but was just… she didn't know what. There weren't words for it.

Irma suddenly stiffened in shock. "... Karen?"

Karen was pretty sure she wasn't going to like whatever came next. "Yeah?" she asked.

Most people couldn't communicate emotion very well with a whisper, but the worry and the fear came through in Irma's just fine. And not just fear, but fear for Karen. "I think someone's been in your head," Irma whispered.

Karen blinked. "What!?"

Midnight fell. There was a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye. Like a cloud passing over the moon. Despite the fear now growing in her heart, Karen focused on it instantly: something tiny was circling over the soccer pitch behind the girls' dorm, back and forth and back and forth over one particular spot. Her eyes widened as she recognized it. It was a Power Ring.

A Black Power Ring. The one they had missed. The one that had gone through the portal to Earth 616 at the last second.

And even as hope sprang anew within the mutant breast, a voice as cold and terrible as the grave spoke into the darkness of the gathering night: "Robert Reynolds of Earth. _**Rise.**_"

End Chapter 03

* * *

><p>Author's notes:<p>

A shorter chapter than the rest, but that's mostly because I decided not to make fill this chapter with all things Kyle Rayner. He'll be a much bigger thing next chapter, though. As for the trip to Limbo, a lot of this was finding a balance between making sure that people who hadn't read the comic wouldn't be lost and that people who had read the comic wouldn't be bored.

re: The Man, Irma's discovery, possible countermeasuresExpect Karen's crippling vulnerability to psychic powers to change in the near future. No more butt-monkey.

re: Bill and Ted  
>Karen's from 1997. To her, that's a much more current reference. -.-<p>

OMAKE

* * *

><p>Belasco landed next to her. He snapped his fingers, and her body floated into the air as he examined her. "Interesting," he said, looking her directly in the eye as he studied her. "A compound soul. It's been ages since I've seen one. It reeks of the science of man, and yet… there is a distinct touch of Chaos to it. And..." he sniffed the air, "Touched by a Hellmouth as well."<p>

"Don't look into his eyes, Karen!" Sooraya whispered from where she lay motionless on her back upon a piece of rubble. "Shaitan can kill with a look!"

Karen let loose with a full strength blast of her heat vision directly into Belasco's eyeballs. "My breasts are down here, asshole!" she shouted. "... Wait. No." She shook her head. "Having someone ogle your soul is confusing. Can we pretend I said something badass instead?"


	32. Unfinished Business, Part III

The New World

by P.H. Wise

A BtVS, Power Girl, DCU, and Marvel Comics crossover fanfic

Chapter 4: Unfinished Business, Part 3

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. I'm honestly not sure who owns Buffy the Vampire Slayer anymore, but it used to be Fran and Kaz Kuzui.

* * *

><p><em>Bereisheet bara Elohim et hashamayim ve'et ha'aretz<em>.

When the sky above was not named, and the earth beneath did not yet bear a name, and the primeval Apsu, who begat them, and chaos, Tiamat, the mother of them both. Their waters were mingled together, and no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen; When of the gods none had been called into being.

In the beginning, the universe belonged to the darkness. And then there was light. At first, there was nothing but the blinding white light of Creation. Then the Darkness fought back, and the light was splintered. The big bang. Cosmic expansion. The birth of galaxies. The solar nurseries. The sun ignites. The planets take form. The Earth cools from a molten state. An impact with another planetoid spins the moon out of the very fabric of the Earth; the first moonrise, a molten moon rising above a molten Earth. The Earth again cools. The oceans form. Life begins. Simple things at first. Tiny things. Things we would barely recognize as alive, but growing in complexity through mutation and natural selection. Branching lines in the tree of life. Greater and greater biodiversity. More and more, and alive, from single cells to trilobites to dinosaurs. Life blooms, and death reaps its harvest. Again and again, life and death and life and death and birth and growth and death, on and on down the ages to the birth of humanity itself, the growth of civilizations and their fall, and here, for a time, on this tiny world in an unremarkable backwater of an unremarkable galaxy dwells beings made from stardust through which the Cosmos can know itself.

In time, not just humanity but every sentient being born from the Light came to contribute to its emotional spectrum. Life added to each respective light, and those lights could be condensed and collected into power; the endless Red Rage; the rapacious Orange light of Avarice; the blinding Yellow Terror; the center, the force which held the rest in balance, the essential light of Green Willpower; the ever-fading, never-lost glow of Blue Hope; the Violet throes of Love; the elusive Indigo Light of Compassion; these are the colors of the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum.

_Who will tell me when my day is through?_

Life is short, and sad, and complicated, and beautiful, and wonderful, and death is always waiting. The darkness does not suffer the light gladly. It waits for every one of us as it waited for every single creature in the long, unbroken thread of life's story, from the modern human back to the first living organisms. As with the great so with the small. Powerful or weak, loved or hated, everything alive will die. Rage. Fear. Will. Hope. Love. Compassion. Death. And who can say if there it is anything after, or if what meaning we find in it is a chasing after the wind? What is crooked cannot be straightened. What is lacking cannot be counted. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.

_The darkness cannot feast on empty hearts_

The black ring was an ancient thing. An incarnation of that dark emptiness before time and space. Forged of hunger, of lack, when it had come through the portal from the Flashpoint, it had lost all connection to its central Power Battery when the Flashpoint was unmade, and the battery with it, and the loss nearly unmade it in turn. Emergency protocols were engaged. All remaining power was to be carefully husbanded until such time as it found a host which could feed it again. Which could allow it to begin to spawn a new rings, and, when it had gathered enough power, a new Central Battery. To begin the Blackest Night anew.

The ring hibernated, all non-essential functions disabled, only the tiniest trickle of power devoted to the search for an appropriate host. Nearly a week had passed from the time of its arrival on Earth 616 to the moment it found what it was looking for. It could ill afford the power required to raise the man. It was a risk, but a calculated risk. Midnight fell. The power of Death waxed in the darkness. The black ring spoke.

"Robert Reynolds of Earth 616. _**Rise.**_"

* * *

><p>Terror seized Karen and her body readied to either fight or flee. It wasn't blind terror - not exactly. It left room for the rest of her mind to operate. It was still a choking, consuming thing, but it took up less space than it should have, somehow. There was a clarity beyond it, though that clarity shrank over time. Even as she watched, a black oil and a dark mist seemed to condense out of the very air. It flowed across the snow, staining everything it touched, flowed through the air, and the grass on the field died as it passed. The crickets stopped chirping. There were no cries of night birds. Even the storm seemed to hold its breath.<p>

"Irma," Karen said quietly, "Get help. Get your sisters. Get everyone who can fight this guy. I'm going to try to hold him off."

A body took form in the midst of the black oil and dark smoke. The Golden Guardian of Good was a pale, rotten thing, his flesh half-putrid, his milky eyes blazing with orange-red light, his blonde hair pale and corpse-dry, hanging limply, bits of it breaking off when he turned his head towards her. His uniform was black and grey, now, and upon his belt, where the golden S should have been, was the symbol of the Black Lantern Corps.

"Go on," Karen said, steeling herself for battle with the Sentry.

Irma squeezed Karen's shoulder. "They're coming," she said. "But I'm not leaving you to face this alone."

When the Sentry spoke, he spoke with a voice that sounded like crumbling, rotted leather. Deep, raspy, and wet in a way that was fundamentally wrong. "I'm back," he whispered. Then he grinned, and when he did, black sludge dripped down his white teeth and over his decaying lips. "Hello, Void," he told Karen. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised to see you here. You're a reflection of me, after all. Though why you're still trying to disguise yourself as a teenaged girl..." He didn't finish that sentence. He trailed off and tilted his head to the side as he considered the two girls. "...emotional electromagnetic spectrum," he muttered. "Why did I never see that before?" He shook his head. "So very many things I should have seen before."

He might have said more, but Karen flickered forward; she crossed the space between them in less time than it took to blink and decked the man. The Sentry didn't lose his feet, but he lost traction on the ground and went sliding backwards at extremely high speed through the snow, carving twin trenches through it until he hit the ice of the lake. He lost his balance on the ice, but he wasn't finished falling by the time he reached the far side of the lake and plowed through a tree growing close to the lakeshore.

He rose to his feet, dusted himself off, and gave Karen a look that said as clearly as if it had been spoken: "Oh, please."

Karen replied by way of settling into a fighting stance and extended her hand towards him, then brought all her fingers back towards her in a 'bring it' gesture.

The Sentry brought it. Light gathered around his fists, pale and wan, and he laughed out loud as he bounded once, hit the ground, and went right into the earth; the snow and dirt beneath him had no power to resist him. There was a rumble, and Karen darted to the side just before the Sentry shot up from underground right at her feet in a fountain of dirt, snow, and pulverized rock. He was just a tiny bit faster than she, and he caught hold of her leg; and though she strained, she could not break his grip. He yanked her leg back towards him; then, before she could arrest her momentum with flight, he brought his other fist around and slammed it into her ribcage with bone-cracking force. Her back slammed into the ground a split second later, and she saw a white flash in her vision.

It felt like being hit by a truck. Well, like being hit by a truck would have felt before Karen had her powers. There was a distinct cracking sound, and then her whole chest hurt like hell. Pain radiated out of it, centered where the Sentry's fist had connected. Then she took a breath, and the pain surged up to levels that bordered on the absurd. It felt like she was breathing liquid fire, and for a moment, it was all she could do not to scream.

Then a blast of Phoenix fire took the Sentry completely by surprise. It reacted to his undead flesh, consuming it with a mad vigor that turned him instantly into a human torch. He screamed in utter agony, shot briefly into the air, and then crashed down through the frozen surface of the lake and into the water below with an impact that shattered the ice for twenty meters around the site of impact.

Irma set down next to Karen's fallen form. Then, without taking her eyes off the lake, she asked, "You okay?"

Karen took another breath, and immediately regretted it. "... Ow," she managed.

"It's probably a couple of broken ribs," Irma said. "I can take the pain away, but you're still hurt, so don't let him hit you there again."

Karen nodded, trying to breath as shallowly as possible. It didn't help. "... Do it," she said. Irma did. The pain simply stopped, and its sudden ceasing was a drug all its own. "Oh my God," Karen murmured, and got back up on her feet.

"Irma will do," Irma replied with an impish grin.

Alarms were sounding all over the campus, now. People were shouting. A pair of Sentinels were approaching, as were a dozen or so adult mutants and another score soldiers.

Then the Sentry rose up from the shattered lake, wreathed in ghost-light. He looked like something out of a nightmare. His already rotted face was covered in horrific burns, one of his eyes had burst, and in places you could see through to his pale skull. "The Light of Creation.." he hissed through the charred ruin of his lips, glaring at Irma.

"The fires of the Phoenix," Irma replied.

Sentry's ruined lips parted into a bestial snarl, but he contained his rage. Even as they looked, the damage began to repair itself, the horrific burns being undone in the space of seconds by the power of the black ring. He shook his head. "I don't have time to play with you and your girlfriend, Void. I haven't seen my wife in… oh, let's just say it's been a while. I'm sure Lindy is just _dying_ to see me again."

Harsh, bright light fell upon the three of them. One of the Sentinels landed thirty yards distant. "YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO BE IN THIS AREA," its pilot boomed over the P.A. system. "YOU HAVE FIVE SECONDS TO SURRENDER OR I WILL OPEN FIRE."

The Sentry didn't reply. He just launched himself forward at full acceleration. He also didn't bother to evade: he hit the Sentinel in the chest fists-first and kept right on going, blasting the machine apart as if it were made of paper mache. Chunks of Sentinel rained down over the field.

"Irma, I have to..." That was as far as Karen got.

"Go," Irma said, interrupting her. "We'll follow when we can."

Karen took to the air and followed after the Sentry; for the second time that night, she headed for New York at top speed.

* * *

><p>The Watchtower got creepy at night. There was always something off about it, but at night it really seemed to come to the fore. It was alien. Wrong. The living quarters were the most normal part, made to look like a typical wholesome American suburban home. But even the warmest, friendliest parts of it were off. It was a Bad Place, but Lindy Reynolds had lived there for a long time, now. Sometimes, late at night, she thought she could hear whispers coming from the basement where Bob had kept the Void trapped.<p>

She'd never gone down there. Never.

Lindy had never asked how exactly the Watchtower had been built. Bob said he'd made it, but the kind of technology here was so far beyond Bob that it wasn't even funny. Bob. Robert. All her thoughts seemed to go back to him. Every time. He was coming back. She knew that. He had to be, because if he wasn't… if he didn't…

The whole world seemed to tremble with the thought. No. Bob was coming back, and she would be here for him when he did.

At least Normie was with her. He did his best. He was a good dog, and he was good company. And if sometimes it felt like she was suffocating living her life in the tower with CLOC providing for her every need, those feelings always passed eventually. If if sometimes she felt as though her life should have been _more_ than this, well, that passed, too. Vodka helped.

She was watching TV when it happened. CLOC suddenly came to life and spoke, his voice instantly drowning out the sounds of the television to her ears: "Sentry detected. Warning: anomaly. Warning: secondary energy source detected." At those words, Lindy Reynolds was so overcome with joy/terror/joy/terror/joy that she barely heard the note of fear enter the artificial voice. "Lindy," it said, "The Sentry is coming, but there are significant anomalies. I believe you should run."

Lindy beamed at CLOC. "I knew he'd come home. I knew he'd be back!"

It grew colder in the living room, and it was not a cold born upon the air, but a cold felt in the soul.

"Lindy," CLOC said, "Run."

Lindy's beaming smile faded slightly. "What?"

The doors were flung open, and Bob was there. The man she'd married. The man she'd loved. The man her whole world had revolved around for… for so long now. His hair shone like spun gold. His eyes were clear, his face every bit as lovely as she remembered. "Bob?" she asked, hope and love and joy all mingling together into a brilliance that felt like Home.

"Lindy, that isn't..." CLOC began. A flash of red-orange light. The sphere which housed CLOC's avatar fell to the floor with a heavy thud, but that seemed strangely unimportant. Distant. He had come back to her.

"I came back for you," Bob said. "I couldn't leave you alone, Lindy. I love you too much for that. So I fought my way back. I came back from the dead to be with you, my love."

Her heart swelled within her. "I love you," she whispered, and in that moment, she meant it.

"I love you," he said. Then he swept her off her feet before she could say anything else, and he kissed her, and kissed her, and kissed her, and she kissed him, too, and everything was right with the world.

Right up until his rotted, putrescent hand plunged towards her chest to rip out her heart.

A vast black claw caught Bob's at the very moment his corpse-hand touched her skin, and though Bob's hand had torn finger-shaped holes in her blouse, and though he strained visibly against the dark hand that had caught his, he went no further.

Lindy's heart thundered in her chest as her gaze tracked slowly up to the thing that was standing behind her. Its maw glittered with teeth. Its eyes blazed like stars. Its flesh was like living shadow, like darkness made manifest, and a dozen infini-tendrils writhed in the air around its beast-like form.

The Void.

The Void had saved her life.

An instant later, something burst through the wall behind her with a protest of metal, of breaking drywall, and of of shattering wood. She had a brief impression of motion and a sharp crack, and then Bob used his free hand to throw a young woman, maybe 17 or 18 years old, into the the living room couch. The couch burst apart like it was nothing, bits of if it scattering in every direction. The girl tumbled head over heels into the wall and hit it so hard she left a dent, and it was only then that it occurred to her that the young woman was Power Girl's twin.

Bob looked from the girl to the Void and back in confusion. And then he wasn't her Bob anymore. He _decayed_. Rotted before her eyes. The smell was ghastly, and she could taste the putrescence on her lips where she'd kissed him. Her gorge rose, and she staggered backwards, away from Sentry and Void both as mad terror roared through her body like a whirlwind.

Then the Void wrapped the Sentry in its infini-tendrils, seized him by both arms, and used tendrils and arms alike to fling him out into the night. The sound of his body crashing through a neighboring skyscraper rose only dimly above the rush of the wind.

Her throat was raw with screams, but she didn't remember screaming. Her eyes were wide. Her heart racing. Tears streaked her makeup. "...What's… what… what… what's happening?" she asked. Power Girl's twin got up. Lindy saw it out of the corner of her eye, but she didn't care. That didn't matter. Not when It was standing before her.

The Void shifted. It took Bob's form. Bob, but every feature cast in shadow no matter where the light sources were, a cape as dark as the night flowing behind him. "The Old Dark took Bob," it told her. "It needs to feed, but the darkness cannot feast on empty hearts. It wants yours. But it's okay, Lindy." Oh, God, oh God, oh God, it even had his voice. IT HAD HIS VOICE! She had to swallow the deranged giggle that threatened to bubble up out of her. "I'm here," the Void said gently. "I'll take care of you. Whatever he can't do, I can. He can't protect you, so I will."

Her world crumbled. Up was down. Black was white. Her vision trembled. She was crying. "Oh, no…"

The Void hugged her gently, and tenderly kissed her brow. It even smelled like him, and that just made it worse. "I've got you, Lindy. It's okay."

Tears flowed freely down her cheeks. She was shaking. She was shaking like a leaf. Her vision blurred. She couldn't seem to... couldn't get enough breath. "Noooo, no, no, no, no..." she moaned.

The last thing Lindy Reynolds saw before she lost consciousness was the face of the Void looking down upon her with love.

* * *

><p>Karen regarded the Void with narrowed eyes even as her other senses remained on high alert, scanning for the Sentry, knowing he might return at any moment. "OK, what's the deal? Because I'm pretty sure you're supposed to the Sentry's evil twin."<p>

The Void held Lindy gently in his arms, smiling down at her unconscious form before looking up to regard Karen. "Aren't you supposed to be the same?" he asked. "I'm almost insulted."

Karen's eyes flickered left and right, watching for movement, seeing through the walls, not finding the Sentry. "What are you, then?"

"Every light casts its shadow," the Void said. "I'm everything he isn't. I can do everything he can't. I'm everything he's afraid of. All he wishes he could be." The Void grinned, and his teeth glinted in the darkness. "I'm Robert Reynolds, girl. His true self. His equal. The only one who could ever match him." His tone darkened, his hatred bubbling up from under the surface. "Until you."

It was then that two things occurred to Karen. The first was that the Sentry was way the hell crazier than she'd ever suspected. The second was that the Void hated her just as much as the Sentry did. Because she matched him. "It bothers you," she said.

"To have to share the title of most powerful being on Earth with a teenaged girl? And not only that, but one who has an equivalent level of power with none of the drawbacks?" His lip curled into a snarl. "Of course not. Why would you think that?"

Something moved in the night. Karen followed it with her eyes, looking through the walls as though they weren't there, but it defied her vision. She couldn't see it clearly. Right. So the Void didn't like having a girl in its weight class. That was a little pathetic, but she needed to stay focused. "You said the Old Dark had taken him. What did you mean?"

The Void looked at her like she was a moron, and it annoyed her. "It's taken him. Unjustly stolen what is mine."

"He was dead," Karen said. She raised an eyebrow. "You're not mad because the ring resurrected him before you could, are you?"

The Void shook his head. "No. That's just it. That's the grand joke. Don't you see? Robert isn't dead. He never was. He only thinks he is. He died because those telepaths convinced him to. The Old Dark animates him because he believes it should."

Karen blinked, and gave the Void an incredulous look. "You're saying his being undead is... psychosomatic?"

The Void laughed. "Yes! Yes." His laughter interrupted his words, and the sound of it was awful, like glass shattering, or the loathsome smell of month-old decay. He took a breath, showing bright teeth beneath his utterly shadowed face. "But that's not what you should be worrying about."

"What should I be worrying about?"

The Void's grin widened until there was no longer any question about its humanity, and Karen's heart sank. "Oh, hell," she muttered.

The Void's dark infini-tendrils awoke, lashing at her like snakes, cables of living shadow that moved in ways which seemed to defy any notion of conventional geometry. Karen moved, but her hesitation against a foe of nearly equal power rendered evasion of all of them to be impossible: she caught the last strike in her hand just before it would have struck her in the throat, and when she caught the black shadow-tendril, she saw all the moments she'd ever wanted to escape from. All the bad times. Past. Present. Future. Traumatic visions, every one. They came in no particular order, one after another after another.

There was a boy who had been her friend, but the monsters had taken him. He was a monster, now, and wanted her blood, and Willow's. He died by accident, shoved violently forward onto the stake that she was holding at ready, but lacked the courage to use.

She had only meant to help. She had never intended to do more damage in helping than the sand-villain had. Damn it, why had she listened to Kara?

She was a fool who had lost a bet and was too proud to do anything but follow through on the failed wager. She wanted to be strong. She wanted to be a man. She was more afraid of being seen as weak than of being beaten up.

She butchered two hundred S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents, reveling in her own power. She almost killed the Avengers. She was helpless before Emma Frost. The sense of violated, helpless outrage when she discovered that Emma had _programmed _her to be unable to attack her! Had programmed her mind with a God-damn _**off switch**_!

At last, at long last, she had come home. To say goodbye. To find closure. To see again the friends she had so dearly missed. … and they had never missed her at all. Never known she was gone. Because HE had been there the whole time, and she wasn't him. She was just a copy. Giles tried to dress it up. "A perfect copy," he said. It didn't help.

She was a little boy lying on his back on the kitchen floor, the whole left side of her face a blaze of agony. Her eye was already swelling, and swelling shut. Jessica Harris was screaming at her father. Screaming at Tony. Tony hadn't meant to hit her, but little Xander had gotten in the way.

She was facing the fire of the Phoenix, desperately trying to save a thousand lives, watching as they burned despite her best efforts.

She was standing helpless as Maxwell Lord forced her to tell him everything she knew about her friends and allies. … As… wait...

She was at the Stamford house, murdering heroes. She watched with despair growing in her heart as the people she'd thought were her friends, whom she had defended, abandoned her.

A creature of rage descended from the heavens to release its fury upon the world. The One Girl in All the World fought the beast before she could intervene, and was laid low.

She fought to save a girl with brown hair that had grown out green, who brought the Light of Hope to a people who had none. She strove to match the Hellgod blow for blow, but she was losing. It had taken too much power. A vampire - the one with the angelic face - watched with undisguised glee, all of New York in ruins around them as the sorcerer prepared for the ritual bloodletting that would tear open the barriers between worlds.

The visions might have gone further, but Karen's eyes blazed with red fire. Her hand clenched tighter upon the infini-tendril, and with a heave, she ripped it off of the Void's body and cast it aside. It hit the far wall with a splat. "I have had just about enough of your bullshit, Bob," she snarled. Then she hit him with twin blasts of heat vision, and he recoiled, backed away to the stairs that led to the basement, and tumbled down them head over heels. She might have pursued him, but a cry of agony came from below - from the Avengers tower, and Karen cursed, and flew down to investigate.

"Sentry!" It was Tony Stark's voice. Karen could see him through the wall. His armor was in the process of unfolding onto his body.

A window had been smashed; glass was everywhere, and an old man in a fine black suit with a blue vest and tie lay flat on his back, eyes open and staring, blood pooling around his body, a bloody hole in his chest. He hadn't been dead long. The Sentry stood over his body, holding the man's heart in his hand. "Poor old Jarvis," he said. "Do you know he felt just before he died?"

Jarvis's heart burned with a pale, cold fire which quickly consumed it; a thick grey smoke rose from it even as it was consumed and flowed into the Sentry's black ring.

_**Power Level 0.01%**_

Tony's jaw dropped open. And then his his armor covered his face.

"He saw you coming to save him, and he felt _hope._"

"Why?" Tony asked.

"God knows," The Sentry replied. "You're not a hero. You never have been. You see yourself as an important man with the will to make the difficult decisions, but you aren't that, either. You're a tool. Just another man in a suit." His voice became mocking. "The futurist Tony Stark. Tell me, Tony. What do you see in your future?"

Iron Man raised his arm, levelled it at the Sentry, and shot the decrepit, rotting body in the chest.

The Sentry glanced down at the adamantium dart that had sunk into him, then back at Tony.

"I'd hoped I would never to need to use this. We developed it as a counter-measure to the Hulk - using advanced nanotechnology specifically tailored to his genetic structure to negate his powers. Forever. I took the liberty of having a few doses prepared for you as well, just in case. Never expected to use it with you being dead, but you're right. I'm a futurist. I believe in being prepared. What I just dosed you with will undo what the super-serum did to you, Bob. You'll be an ordinary human in a moment. Well, an ordinary corpse."

Sentry laughed. Then he hit Iron Man so hard he sent him flying through the wall. "Stupid little man," he said. "You think your _machines _can stop me?"

Karen was there when he went to follow. She caught him by the elbow just before he would have crushed Iron Man beneath him. "I don't think so," she said, and flung him bodily up through the roof. Sentry tumbled through the upper floors of Stark Tower and into the basement of the Watchtower above, and Karen followed, hitting him again and again and again, her blows breaking the sound barrier, the concussive blasts of the impact sending shockwaves into the surrounding structure of the tower.

Then Sentry recovered from his initial surprise. "After I beat you, I'm going to make you watch while I pull the limbs off your mutant friends," he said conversationally. Then he started fighting back. His uppercut sent her flying up through a dozen floors of the Watchtower, metal tearing with shrieks of protest, the Sentry's power flaring beneath her in a brilliant display of golden light as the Black Lantern unleashed the power of a million exploding suns. His power showed no signs of fading.

She stopped only when she hit the ceiling of the living quarters. There was no sign of Lindy, and no sign of the Void, but Sentry was rising from below. She could feel his light, and despite his dead state, is affected her just as it had the last time they had fought: it gave her strength. It wasn't much, but it helped.

Karen felt the brush of Irma's mind against hers. '_Karen_,' Irma said telepathically. '_The X-Men aren't being allowed to leave. My sisters and I are on our way. So is Prodigy. He and his teacher will arrive before we do._'

He came at her with what would have been blinding speed to anyone else: to her it looked like a normal-speed, somewhat clumsy punch. Oh, his whole body was glowing, and his fists and his eyes shone like deathly stars, but it was _clumsy_. Not totally untrained - but he seemed… rusty. Which stood to reason: he probably hadn't fought anyone on equal terms since… since she'd fought him as Divine. She herself was no martial arts master, but Giles had trained her some before all this, she'd gotten some from Kara's memories of training with Wildcat when the Cuckoos had given her Kara's control of her powers, and she'd been training with the X-Men for months; one of the classes they all had to take was hand-to-hand combat as taught by Logan. Hell, Logan had, since their return from the Flashpoint, taken a particular delight in forcing her to do hand-to-hand training with the danger room simulating the effects of red sunlight in order to force her to operate at a more human level before being allowed to take it up to full speed. Giles's training, Logan's training, Kara's memories, all of it together was making the difference now. Karen blocked Sentry's first blow, guide-parried the second and third, and then, when he rushed at her, did a simple throw that sent him sprawling. He was stronger than her, but only about as much stronger as you'd expect a man of his size and weight to be than a woman of her size and apparent weight.

"You've never actually had to fight, have you?" she asked.

The Sentry snarled at her as he rose to his feet, coming in with a one-two combo that was pretty blatantly telegraphed and obvious. She dodged the first, caught his arm on the second, and twisted it behind his back. And since she wasn't screwing around anymore, she didn't bother trying to force him into submission through pain: she just broke his arm as viciously as she could.

She grinned, feeling a bit better about her chances, now. "You haven't, have you? You've always relied on being overwhelmingly more powerful than your enemies. Grab them and throw them into the sun, right? Take them up into orbit and rip them in half? You have no idea how to fight." It wasn't strictly true: his fighting ability could charitably be described as 'average, if a bit rusty,' but she actually was trying to make him mad: fight angry, fight stupid.

He obliged, charging like an angry bull, using his godlike speed and strength to its fullest extent to come barrelling in for the kill. So she kicked him in the balls with enough force to shatter a mountain, and every window in a three block radius immediately shattered.

Sentry let out a pathetic, agonized shriek as he staggered back, clutching at his crotch as he doubled over. "I'm going to make you pay for that," he hissed when he could speak again.

"Yeah, yeah," Karen said, "Tell it to someone who isn't kicking your ass right now."

On the fight's periphery, Iron Man returned, this time accompanied by Miss Marvel. Iron Man's armor had seen better days. He and Miss Marvel exchanged words, but Karen spared it little attention.

Sentry's eyes strayed to the ring upon his finger, then flickered back up to Karen. He straightened, his visage flickering back and forth between decay and health several times in the course of a second, and each time it shifted to decay, he seemed visibly less pained.

Iron Man and Miss Marvel both shot Sentry in the back with full attacks blasts: repulsor and photonic blast. It did very little save distract the Sentry, but a moment's distraction was enough: Karen shot forward and used that moment to hit the Sentry so hard she broke his arm. Then she twisted and yanked, and with an assist from both her freezing breath and her heat vision, his arm - the arm to which the hand bearing the black ring was connected - came clean off. The awful tearing squelch-splatter was muffled by the storm, and the wind took the worst of the stench.

Knowing that he would just regenerate it, that she couldn't actually separate him from the ring without destroying it, Karen looked down and blasted the ring directly with her heat vision.

It did precisely nothing. The ring didn't even seem to warm.

A thousand tendrils of darkness flowed up through the Sentry's severed arm, reconnecting it with his body and regenerating the break in his arm. Then the Sentry sneered at the three of them and raised his ring.

The black ring flared with a pale, ghostly light, and around the Sentry coalesced two shadows, two ring-constructs, one of the Sentry as he existed in some idealized silver age long since passed, the other of the Void dressed in a ridiculous trench coat and hat over a black suit that made him look more than a little like a movie mobster. The shadow-Sentry immediately turned and flew away, and when Karen moved to stop him, the shadow-Void caught her by the legs while the Sentry shot up and delivered two powerful blows to her chest, each one hitting her already broken ribs. The pain flooded back through her body, rampaging over the block Irma had created like the enormous herd of angry t-rexes that it felt like were stomping on her chest. She couldn't breathe. Her lungs were full of magma. The world spun. … No, the Sentry was spinning her. He threw her into the Watchtower, and her scream of pain was suddenly cut off as the impact with the superstructure knocked the air out of her lungs. She sheared through the advanced materials of the Watchtower and vanished into its interior.

The Watchtower fell. It fell from its perch atop Stark Tower with a roar like armageddon. Down, down it fell, broken to pieces as it smashed against Stark Tower, parts of Stark Tower breaking off and falling in turn, all of it spilling down toward the New York streets.

A gigantic catchers' mitt forged from pure green willpower caught it less than a hundred feet off the ground, pulled back, and then, with a groan of protesting metal, launched the entire wreck skyward at escape velocity.

Karen tumbled free of the wreckage, spinning head over heels as she struggled to regain control of her flight: after about a second, she managed to right herself. Everything hurt. Her head throbbed. Breathing was agony, but she had to stop him no matter how much it hurt. She clenched her teeth and prepared to face the Sentry once more. Then a hand fell upon her shoulder.

Prodigy had arrived.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Been better," she managed. She took an agonizing breath, then another, forcing herself to function through the pain. "Glad you could make it, David," she said. "I'm pretty sure this guy is cheating."

A cry of pain rang out in the night. A voice she recognized. With a curse, Karen flew off to the source of the cry, with Prodigy following close behind.

On the thirty-seventh floor of Stark Tower, the Sentry stood over Captain America, whose shield arm was an unrecognizable bloody mess, and whose shield lay discarded on the floor. For all that, Captain America stood unbowed, looking his enemy in the eye.

_**Compassion. Will.**_

"So much for the power of American righteousness," the Sentry said. "People talk about you like you're something impressive, but you're just a man. A dead man."

"Violence is not strength," Captain America replied, "And compassion is not weakness."

The undead Sentry was unimpressed by his words. A pale light flared in his hand as he gathered the destructive energy he would use to end the Captain's life. Before he could let it fly, a blast of heat-vision and a lance of green light hit the Sentry simultaneously. The green light was what seemed to damage him: he staggered, his entire right side smoldering from the impact.

Somewhere in the night, another life ended. Another heart was claimed by the Old Dark.

_**Power Level 0.02%**_

With Prodigy's arrival, what had been a battle swinging against Karen began to swing back the other way, and while Iron Man and Miss Marvel could contribute little, they were at least strong enough that the Sentry noticed when they hit him with ranged attacks, and every so often, they were able to distract either the Sentry or his shadow at a critical moment that allowed the two X-Men to gain the upper hand.

"Bob," Karen said as they fought, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually do know you're in there somewhere. You have to fight. You can't let this monster control you."

The Sentry's only response was an expression that was variously incredulous and disappointed, as if to ask, 'Really? Come on, really?'

"You have to wake up," Karen said. It hurt like hell to talk. The pain didn't stop her.

The Sentry snorted, and the battle continued; even as he slowly lost ground, he spoke, saying, "Did you know that I can see the entire Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum? Hate, Will, Love, Avarice, Compassion, Hope, and Fear: I can see them all." There was a brief pause between each word as they fought. Between love and avarice, Sentry sent an intense blast of energy at Prodigy, who evaded by bare centimeters. Prodigy in turn fired off a will-forged blast which the Sentry evaded, only for that blast to split into a dozen smaller blasts, each of which in turn split into ten more blasts, all of them homing in on the Sentry, striking him just after he finished the word, 'fear.' The Sentry staggered backwards, growing angrier and angrier. "Do you want to know what I saw when your girlfriend was with you, girl?" he asked.

Right. And why would she think that a zombie Sentry would tell her the truth? "Not really, no," Karen said.

"Are you afraid of what you might learn?" Sentry asked.

"More like bored and hoping to skip the 'blatant emotional manipulation attempt' part of the fight," Karen said.

"She shone, girl. She shone with the orange light of Avarice."

Karen blinked. There was a long pause, and then she asked, "... That's it?"

The Sentry frowned. "What do you mean, 'that's it?'"

"Your big attempt to manipulate me consists of you telling me my girlfriend wants me? You're bad at this." She glanced at Prodigy. "Back me up here, man."

Prodigy nodded in agreement. "As attempts to emotionally manipulate your enemy go, I give it two out of ten."

"Why the extra point?" Karen asked.

Prodigy smirked. "He spoke the whole thing in complete sentences. Credit where credit is due."

Karen nodded. "Fair enough."

The Black Lantern Sentry's face had darkened all throughout that exchange, and by the end of it, he was all but radiating fury. The battle continued, and the power around the Sentry grew ever stronger, ever brighter, until he seemed all but consumed by a pale, ghostly aura. "Fine," he hissed. "You want to skip to the killing you part? Done." A dozen more Black Energy constructs flickered into being, then, spawned from Robert Reynolds's darkest nightmares, each humanoid save that they had too many eyes, too many limbs, and moving in ways that suggested not only that the humanoid shape was but a shell, but that whatever creature was contained within that humanoid shape was something very, very alien. They moved to surround the two X-Men, the Sentry's entire focus upon them - which was the plan.

"Two can play at that game," Prodigy said. His ring pulsed, and then a group of three men and two women in distinctive spandex uniforms numbered from one to five and wearing face-concealing helmets, all of them forged from Will and green light, coalesced into being. They immediately charged in to do battle with the dark constructs.

Karen blinked. "Are those Power Rangers?" she asked.

Prodigy nodded, maintaining an admirably deadpan demeanor. "S.P.D.," he answered.

The battle went on, green construct Rangers firing blasters as the dark constructs approached, then switching to D-Rods and D-Knuckles as they closed to melee range. Meanwhile, Karen darted forward, flattened her body horizontally in mid-air to avoid a haymaker punch, and hit the Sentry in the midsection, driving him down towards the street. The Sentry-construct darted in to deflect her, but was forced to veer off at the last second when Prodigy put a beam of green light between her and it, which fractured even as it came between the two, splitting apart into a cage of green energy around the dark Sentry construct. Prodigy clenched his fist, and the cage collapsed inwards, crushing the dark construct until cage and dark construct alike burst asunder.

Karen slammed the Sentry into the pavement, which cracked violently in a spider-web pattern out from the point of impact. He finally landed a hit on her, and though she blocked it, it struck with such force that it staggered her and sent a wave of pain shooting through her forearm.

A shadow passed over them: a white and blue vehicle was flying overhead, with a brilliant blue stylized '4' emblazoned upon it. Karen glanced up at it for the briefest of possible moments, and recognized the four people within it. More heroic reinforcements were arriving by other means; Luke Cage came running up out of a subway, and a tall, beautiful amazonian woman with green skin and hair wearing what looked like a one-piece white and purple bathing suit leaped down from a roof across the street. Above them, news helicopters had begun to circle. More heroes joined the battle. More and more. Another life ended, and another. Power levels increased. But at this point, it didn't matter: Kyle Rayner arrived on the scene, and faced with two Green Lanterns and a Kryptonian plus the assembled heroes of New York, the Sentry finally turned and fled.

Or tried to.

Karen, David and Kyle were there to stop his retreat.

They caught him before he'd gone more than three blocks, Karen dealing with him physically while the two Lanterns put a stop to his dark constructs, and a being with power enough to break the world was thereby contained. Then, at last, the Phoenix drew near, a fiery raptor in the sky announcing their approach. They landed even as Karen slammed the Sentry to the ground and wrenched his arms behind his back until they broke, rendering them once again, momentarily useless.

The Black Lantern looked up at the Phoenix hosts as they set down, his eyes glittering with hatred. "That won't work," he said. "You aren't the white light of creation."

"We are life," Celeste said.

"We are fire," Irma said.

"And we know how to deal with you," Phoebe finished.

Then, together, they spoke, their eyes blazing with fire, their voices echoing with power. "_**Robert Reynolds of Earth,**_" they said, "_**Live.**_"

The Black Lantern howled in agony as the fire of life itself consumed it from within, and everywhere that fire touched, it burned away corruption and left unmarked, healthy flesh in its place.

_**Connection Severed.**_

Robert Reynolds was reborn. Alive, he fell to his knees and wept. Of the black ring there was no sign. And somewhere in the distance, the Void laughed.

Karen nearly collapsed. Not from exhaustion: she wasn't tired; she was never tired, now. Not physically, at least. Rayner was speaking, but she didn't pay it any mind. Her everything hurt too much to pay attention to him.

"You okay?" Irma asked, but it sounded hazy, fading in and out of audibility.

Karen didn't answer right away. She looked at the wreckage the fight had left behind. Water was fountaining into the sky from several places. There were holes in the road went clear down to the subway tunnels. The front doors and lobby of Stark Tower were shattered, and smashed, sometimes overturned cars dotted the streets around the building. The police had already created a perimeter and were keeping people away. Now that the fight was over, several ambulances pulled up.

Everything was too bright and too loud, and in too many colors.

Irma's voice snapped into focus. "Karen, you with us?" she asked.

"It never stops," Karen whispered.

"What?"

"It never stops." She looked to Irma, who had landed next to her, now, the fires of the Phoenix faded away. "How do you live like this?"

Irma's expression grew marginally more guarded. "Live like what?"

"Like this," Karen said, and made an all-encompassing gesture. "It never stops. Crisis after crisis after crisis. I got here just after a bus full of Xavier students had been blown up. Then Purifiers were trying to murder even more students at the mall. Preachers were riling up crowds against us. Then Nimrod. Divine. The 198. I mean, there was a few weeks after the Sentry attacked the first time, when I became... when I got this body, where everything was calm, but other than that, it just... doesn't stop." Karen looked down at her hands. Bitterness roiled inside her, making her words angry and harsh. "Children of the Vault. Random godlike beings causing trouble. The Phoenix possesses you and your sisters. Then comes the Flashpoint, and after that, we come back to this. Back to people hating us, and the school becoming more and more of an internment camp. Then Dawn shows up, then another random godlike being abducts the entire school, and no sooner did we deal with that than we learn that Max Lord's been inside my head, but hey, can't do anything about that because the Sentry's back with a deadite makeover..." she trailed off, hating what she was feeling, but feeling it all the same: an emotion she had hated even as Xander:

Helplessness.

Karen swallowed. "What am I supposed to do? I can't be everywhere, and it never stops..."

Irma's expression softened, and she hugged Karen, pulling her close.

Irma's touch felt good. There was comfort there.

"I don't know," Irma said. "Maybe you just do the best you can. Maybe that's all you can do."

Some of the tension seemed to drain out of Karen. Not all, but some. She leaned into Irma's embrace, returning it now, her arms around the shorter girl's shoulders, Irma's around her waist, and they stood there a time together; and if the world went on around them with its sirens and lights and worried faces and police and paramedics and reporters and passers by and fears of what even worse is still in store, neither of them paid it any mind.

Karen wasn't sure how much time passed, but they stood there until Iron Man and Ms. Marvel landed on either side of them. "Both of you unhurt?" Ms. Marvel asked.

"I'm fine," Karen lied. She didn't know that Iron Man's suit could detect the broken ribs, but he didn't say anything. She looked to Iron Man. "Can you get me in touch with Thor?" she asked.

Iron Man raised an eyebrow behind his helmet. "Why?" he asked.

"I need him to send a message to someone." She looked to where Bob Reynolds was lying curled up in a foetal ball where the Cuckoos had resurrected him. "The Sentry needs help. I think I know who can give it to him."

Iron Man was silent for a moment. Then he nodded. "All right," he said.

The aftermath of the battle was a thing of hours. Emergency crews came and went. The police tried to secure the places most damaged by the fight, redirecting traffic in their heavy winter coats as the snow began to fall again. The Cuckoos talked with Ms. Marvel for a while. The pain in Karen's chest grew less as her body used its stored solar energy to repair the broken bones, though it was much slower going than it had ever been in the past. She wasn't sure if that was because it was night or not.

People were talking about the attack. About Karen's intervention. The Sentry was back. News crews were braving the storm to film the aftermath.

Karen heard Prodigy's voice not far away.

"Thanks for getting here so quickly," Prodigy said.

Karen looked up. Prodigy was talking with Kyle Rayner. There was another man not far away. A man in a blue jumpsuit with a white lightning bolt design down the front. He didn't look healthy, and his white hair swept back to twin points on either side of his head. She didn't recognize him.

The man in the blue jumpsuit abruptly interrupted Prodigy and Kyle's conversation. "I can give it back to you if you want it," he said.

Prodigy looked confused. "Give what back?"

"Your power," the man in the blue jumpsuit said. "I can give it back to you. You can be a mutant again." Karen started paying more attention, then. This guy could give back lost mutant powers?

Prodigy frowned as he turned to study the man in the jumpsuit. "What's the catch?" he asked.

Kyle sighed. "Pietro, are you making an offer of dark, ill-gotten powers to my student while we're trying to help you?"

The man - Pietro - got defensive at that. "They're not dark or ill-gotten!" he snapped.

"No," Kyle said, "You just haven't successfully restored anyones powers without incredibly dangerous side effects."

"... Ah," Prodigy said. He took a step back from Pietro. "I'll pass for now, thanks."

Pietro looked annoyed. "Suit yourself," he said.

Another hour passed with Karen trying very hard not to think about the thing that had her practically terrified out of her wits. So she thought about the dozen other things that were making her life difficult. She talked with Captain America and Ms. Marvel about the situation at the Xavier Institute, and both agreed that something needed to be done. Steve said he would talk to the President, but Carol was less than hopeful about the chances of this changing anything.

Then Iron Man contacted her on her communicator. "He's here," was all he said.

Right. Time to talk to Bob Reynolds.

She found him on the roof standing atop the wreckage that had been the place where the Watchtower had been joined to Stark Tower. There was no sign of Lindy, no sign of Normie, no sign of CLOC, no sign of the Void.

He stood in silence, ignoring her - or perhaps unaware of her - for a few long minutes. Karen let them pass. She waited until he was ready. By the time he spoke, the pain in her chest had gone down to something downright bearable.

"... I guess I owe you an apology," he said. His voice was sad. Tentative. Like he didn't trust it.

"I guess you do," she replied, and almost immediately she wished she could take the words back. This wasn't why she'd come up here, but a hurt, angry, and vindictive part of her had spoken before she could stop herself.

"It won't help," Bob noted. "I've hurt too many people for it to help."

"It wasn't you," Karen said. "It wasn't your fault that a black lantern ring decided to reanimate your corpse."

Bob laughed a bitter little laugh. "It's always my fault. Everything. Always. I wanted to be a hero, but I'm not."

"What do you mean?"

"I let it take me," Bob said. "It doesn't matter. Didn't matter. Won't. Even without black lantern rings, the truth is, for every person I save, another person dies. For every act of compassion, the Void matches it was a senseless act of violence. I cure, he kills. I build, and he destroys. I'm tired. I'm tired of all of this. I was happier dead. I was at peace."

"You weren't dead, Bob," Karen said. "You just thought you were."

Bob laughed bitterly. "Did the Void tell you that?" he asked.

Karen made a face.

"Thought so," Bob said. He shook his head. "I just want it to stop. That's all. Is that really so bad? No more battles. No more Sentry. No more Void. No more dead children. No more lies, no false hopes, no reverses. No more wondering what even worse is still to come."

"I don't think it works that way," Karen said, putting a hand on Bob's shoulder.

"I just want to end," Bob said brokenly, tears tracing their way down his cheeks.

Karen shifted uncomfortably. This was a little too familiar. She had never imagined she would understand how the Sentry felt, but she did. She shook her head. "It's not going to end, Bob. It's never going to end for us. You can hide from the world, crawl into a hole, whatever, but that won't solve your problem. You've got power, and it's not going to go away. But you're not alone."

"Lindy's is terrified of me. She was here, earlier. An hour ago. You know what was the first thing she said when we were alone for five minutes?" His voice grew quiet. Desperate. Full of grief. "… She wants a divorce."

Karen swallowed. She didn't know what to say. "Still," she said, "You're not alone." It sounded lame even to her own ears.

Bob looked at Karen incredulously. "What, you? Some alien from another universe who I've been trying to kill ever since I met her wants to me my friend?"

"Well, when you put it that way, it does sound a little weird. But I don't think you're a bad person, Bob. You're just in a bad place. I want to help. And I've got friends who can help."

"The X-Men can't help me," Bob said. "They've tried. It's never worked."

A shadow fell over the two. Someone was above them. There was the sound of a cape billowing in the wind.

Karen smiled. "I didn't say it was the X-Men."

Robert Reynolds looked up.

A red cape. A blue costume. An S so very like, and yet unlike his own.

It was a strange thing to be in the presence of a legend. Of a living symbol of hope. Even Bob seemed to sense it when Superman landed on the rooftop. Bob looked up, perhaps perplexed at this new intrusion into his life, and then his expression changed. Shifted in response to the man's presence.

"You must be Mr. Reynolds," Superman said. "Call me Superman." He smiled warmly, and there was compassion is his eyes. "I'm here to help."

And in spite of himself, for the first time in forever, hope stirred in the heart of Robert Reynolds.

"Thank you," Karen mouthed to Superman. He replied with a nod without taking his attention off the man she'd asked him to come help.

She left them to it. She went back inside. Found the Cuckoos, and sat down for one last talk in a lounge in the section of Stark Tower set aside for the Avengers. It had seen better days. The walls were cracked, and a few chairs had been crushed by bits of debris falling from the ceiling, but there was room enough for the four of them. .

_Footsteps crunched in the snow. A man was approaching, and unlike the rest of the crowd, he didn't avoid approaching the two of them. He was dressed much like he had been in her dream. A middle-aged white man in a business suit with mouse brown hair and dark eyes. He had exchanged his suit jacket for a heavier winter one, but that was his only concession to the weather. His appearance was immaculate, and everything about the way he moved spoke of casual authority, of privilege._

Karen was too mentally and emotionally exhausted to react much to the memory that the Void had brought back to her with his infini-tendrils. For a second, she could still feel the slimy tentacle-thing in her hand, and it squicked her the hell out. She looked up. "So I'm sure Irma told you about how she thinks someone's been in my head, right?"

"We're a telepathic gestalt, Karen," Phoebe said. "What she knows, we know."

"Right." Karen took a breath. "... Remember way back when I talked about Maxwell Lord, and how he'd made Divine to fight Power Girl, and what he was capable of?" she asked.

The girls all nodded again.

Karen shuddered, allowing the memories of that moment to come bubbling back up from where she'd been trying to ignore them. She showed the Cuckoos what had happened. What Max had done. What he'd made her tell him. … And what he'd ordered her to do.

"Well," Celeste said as they finished viewing the memories Karen had asked them to look at. "...Crap."

Yeah. That was about right.

And it never, ever stopped.

END CHAPTER 04

* * *

><p>-=-OMAKE-=-<p>

The Void's dark infini-tendrils awoke, lashing at her like snakes, cables of living shadow that moved in ways which seemed to defy any notion of conventional geometry. Karen moved, but her hesitation against a foe of nearly equal power rendered evasion of all of them to be impossible: she caught the last strike in her hand just before it would have struck her in the throat. She twisted with it, bringing it in line for her freezing breath, opened her mouth and prepared to let loose.

At that moment, Lindy opened her eyes and sat up. She saw Karen holding a writhing infini-tendril apparently just inches away from her open mouth. Her jaw dropped open. "WHAT. THE. HELL." she ground out.

Karen and the Void both froze in place. It did not make it look any better.

Lindy stared, jaw still dropped open.

The Void looked a little panicked. "Lindy!" he said. "This, uh, isn't what it looks like."

Lindy stood up. "You know what? I don't even care." She stalked angrily out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

Karen and the Void exchanged looks. Then the Void pulled his infini-tendrils back to himself. "Well," he said, "That sure killed the mood."

Karen snorted. "If you want, we can wait half an hour and then try again."

The Void glared at her. "Shut up!" he snapped. "My infini-tendrils are NOT metaphorical penises!"

Karen thought about that. And then the squick hit her. Oh God, but the squick. "... and you just made it weird," she said.

"You started it!" the Void insisted. "Stop being squicked!" he demanded, his infini-tendrils quivering with his anger. "Stop it, damn you!"

That just made it worse. "You are really not helping right now," Karen said.

-=-OMAKE END-=-

-=-OMAKE 2-=-

Normal person: *after witnessing Karen defeat the Sentry* *awestruck* "Are you... are you gods?"

Irma: "Of course no-"

Karen: *interrupting* "Yes."

Irma: *shoots Karen an askance glance* "Karen?" *tone of voice is totally 'what do you think you are doing?'*

Karen: "What? When someone asks if you're a god, you say 'yes.' Everyone knows that."

Irma: -.-

-=-OMAKE 2 END-=-

Author's Notes:

Well. That took considerably longer than I had intended, and I'm still not 100% happy with the results, but at least the chapter's done. I will probably come back and revise this later to make it flow better, but for now, it's finished.


End file.
